InsideOutMusic
This is Pure Reason Revolution’s sixth record, the third after their hiatus in 2003. Having got the band back together, main songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Jon Courtenay has assembled an impressive supporting cast, starting with his original pre-hiatus collaborator US song-writer and multi-instrumentalist Greg Jong, Ravi Kesavaram who has been a touring member of the band for some time now, and no less than Guy Pratt on bass, and half of The Pineapple Thief – Bruce Soord and Jon Sykes – to provide production and mixing, when they are not adding guitars and bass respectively. The final piece in the puzzle is the voice of Annicke Shireen (Heilung), a critical part of the album’s sound.
It is an interesting record and deceptively ambitious. The songs hide their complexity well, whether it is in the arrangements or the episodic nature of the writing. It is clearly intended as a kind of concept album, taking the music and the record as it comes, even without keeping in mind the back story of the unexpected grief experienced by Courteney in having to put down his family’s dog and all the reflections on grief, loss, and mortality that that event prompted. Those are the themes which tie the lyrics together, but there are similarities between the songs as well, not least because of the recurring lush ensemble vocals.
The episodic nature of the writing doesn’t always work so well. “Dig Til You Die”, the opening track (as we may as well treat the various instrumental interludes as part of the tracks that follow them), skips along through a range of colours and styles, not all complementary. “Useless Animal”, part of the longer second part of the album, which has something of a song cycle feel about it, on the other hand, pulls this off well, with the change in intensity and instrumentation in the chorus working perfectly. “Worship” which follows it is more ambitions again, with at least five different styles of music and song writing cramped into the piece. Some of it flows, some of it doesn’t, but it’s hard to fault the intent.
“As We Disappear”, the final track, is probably the most earnest, the most yearning, though there is a good deal of soul-searching through the record’s narrative. Only on “Gallows” earlier in the record is there a more ironic tone, as the piece has a sugary feel in its major-key atmosphere and upbeat vocals, arguably a nice contrast to the rest of the record, though it may be jarring to some.
It is otiose to try to produce a catalogue of comparisons between bands operating in similar musical spaces, though unsurprisingly there are sonic similarities to The Pineapple Thief because of Bruce’s hands on the console. But any of this kind of talk risks washing away the impact of the whole. Better to regard the album’s strengths and weaknesses on its own terms. The playing is good throughout, though there are no stellar moments of individual brilliance, as it is not that kind of record. It is much more about the songs themselves, their melodies, lyrics and their arrangements. As already noted, the episodic writing works much of the time but not always, and there are moments where musical ideas, that are clearly good, seem a little stitched together, like in “Worship”. I’m also not totally convinced of the compatibility of Kesavaram’s drumming style with some of the songwriting, which has quite an insistent feel. This works well on the faster or higher energy passages, like the choruses but always on the gentler sections. “Betrayal” exhibits this tension most of all but it is consistently good on “Useless Animal”.
Largely, though, the emotional contours of the record are good, even if some of the transitions are signposted or we are brought back to an earlier theme or timbre having been kicked up a gear. Whether we need another record about mortality is another question. Though much is made of the lyrics and the background to the record, I would argue that the musical aspect of the songwriting and the arrangements outshines the lyrical content. In the end, the record does literally disappear in its final piano notes, an excellent piece of stage management and an example of a delicacy that is only occasionally visible on a record which is dense, stylistically complex, and largely satisfying.
4/6 | Alex Maines
Release date: 6 September 2024