Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A debut to die for?, 1 Feb 2009
Even a casual glance at the song titles will quickly reveal that lyrically this is a dark, dark album. But musically it's an intoxicating, exhilarating and wholly original ride through a largely uncategorisable landscape, albeit one with some familiar signposts along the way. Echoes of The Doors and Kraftwerk are evident amongst myriad influences, whilst the production and arrangements constantly surprise and repeatedly confound expectations.
Just when you think you've got the measure of a particular track it'll make an unexpected turn in a completely different direction, never more strikingly than on "Throwing Bones" where an accapella barbershop quartet suddenly hijacks the tune in mid flow. By rights, of course, it shouldn't work but in fact it does so spectacularly, with a remarkable self-assurance that seems stitched through the entire work. At times it's hard to believe that this is a debut album, such is the self-confidence running through its veins.
There are no throwaway tunes here. Nothing clocks in at under four minutes, whilst the brooding "Island" takes almost nine to build from solo guitar and voice to its powerful choral climax. Only on the album's closer "Whole is On My Side" do you sense the band beginning to run out of steam a bit, but by then they've done more than enough to earn their five stars.
Very early days still, but I'll be amazed if this isn't on many people's "Best of 2009" list come the end of the year.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
You really should check out Checkmate Savage., 6 Jun 2009
If you attempted to place Checkmate Savage , the debut album by Scottish six piece The Phantom Band , into genre specific slots you would probably end up with R.S.I from whipping it out of one and then into another as yet another of the nine songs on the album switched styles midway , quarter, an eighth of the way through .This album is harder to pin down than an eel swathed in grease relaxing in a paddling pool made of butter.
Comparisons have been made the Beta Band and I can see the logic of that . The Phantom Band have a similar off-kilter but esoterically appealing approach to music . But they subvert norms and interweave styles even more .At times it sounds so resolutely studious and serious you fear lives may depend on it , other times it's so playful and off-beat that it seems life's just there to be enjoyed and to hell with everything. Checkmate Savage is imperfect but gloriously so.
The six members of The Phantom Band work in fields as disparate as art, law, social work and librarianship when not fulfilling band duty and maybe it's this eclectic mixture of influences that make the music so thrillingly hybrid. Rock mixes with folk via electronica , or splenetic rhythms vie with motorik rumblings or portentous keyboards pinion bass that growls like an inflamed appendix into a queasy pop chorus. Choral effects pop up at oddly opportune moments. Extended jams ( the recording process with ex-Delgado Paul Savage-perhaps the title alludes to him is some way?- took in lots of formless jams ) emerge gracefully from the arrangements.
The nine minute centrepiece of the album "Island" starts out as a lovely lilting acoustic ballad with ascending choral vocals with the vocals about "wildest Love" and "purest love" picked out by gentle banjo. It's the most uncomplicatedly affecting song on the album and arguments could be made I suppose that more of this and less of the tongue in cheek leanings like "Burial Sounds" would give the album more emotional character but then again would the album be as quirkily memorable ?
Personally I love the silly howling on ....errr "The Howling " and the weird wobbly background noise on "The Whole On My Side" and if there is a better all over the place song released this year than "Folk Song Oblivion " I want to hear it with unbecoming alacrity .Even the seven minute plus instrumental "Crocodile" has a groovy multifaceted fascination .Anyone with more than a cursory interest in the myriad possibilities music( often within one song ) offers should check out Checkmate Savage.
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Original, but no Werther's ..., 30 Jan 2009
The Scottish music scene is a lively sea of talent and karaoke monarchs. Every now and then a bobbing bottle is uncorked, and within this warped glass cone an enigmatic message is found, written and rolled. I've just found the Phantom band washed up on the sands of my beach.
We like to stick lots of labels on our new discoveries, just to show THEM where WE'VE been. We can also do this with these chaps, but they know what they're doing. This is the stuff they've hammered out with love and labour. These are musicians, who don't have any debts ... they'll tip the hats they wear, but they're going their own way.
The first track "The Howling" is a nice bit of aural foreplay: it summons up a Franz Ferdinand vibe, but it's only a vibe. From there on in you'll hear all sorts of things you think you'll recognise (I'm sure I heard their collective skills waft some scent Link Wray and of the Doors down my ear holes). There are several stand-out tracks: "Burial Sounds" has a brilliant into; "Crocodile" coasts along ... and sounds kind of tactile (imagine running your finger tips along the armoured skin of a large reptile) ... I could go on.
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