Love Midlake, "Van'" is in my all time top LPs and they are even better live but they seem far too hooked into the folky thing now? It (in my opinion of course) weakened the last record, still excellent but just needed a bit more kick and it shows on their choices here.
I am really into the psych and folk stuff from the late 60s and 70s with Pentangle (strange they never made this?), Steeleye, Fairports, Sandy Denny and some of the funky folk from America dominating my cd player at the moment together with the excellent compilations you can search for on Amazon. Therefore I was really looking forward to this but it does not quite hit the spot.
Midlake started out I think as a jazz funk band and from their live stuff and "Van" you can hear the obvious soft rock influences. A real feel of CSNY, Fleetwood Mac etc flows through that and yet this cd seems to just take the very easy paced folk theme and not steer from untimately a slightly dreary course.
I wanted to hear what rock and funk influences they had but nothing like that is given any space on here. Some very good tunes such as the ones by Bread Love and Dreams and Rodriguez as well as the better known people but just not enough variety or a chance to find out what they were listening to in their earlier years.
Really hope they wake up a bit before they record their next LP??