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Album Review
by SashaS
4-10-2001
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| 'lilac6' |
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The Lilac Time : 'lilac6'
(Cooking Vinyl)
The Lilac Time return after a lengthy absence to deliver a corker of an album
Just look at the series of bands: Teenage Fanclub, Travis, Doves, Coldplay, Starsailor… well, the whole of the acousto-rock scene. They would have had a problem finding a musical niche if it weren’t for the pioneering Stephen Duffy’s The Lilac Time. The band was often ridiculed for their acoustic guitar, elegiac songs and the gentle rustle of leaves on the country pathways… That’s usually the fate of originators in the world where to derive is considered divine.
The fact of the matter is that the band’s first three albums, long deleted from the now Universal owned Fontana label, have been changing hands at £50 a pop on an Internet site. Then, a double-CD anthology, ‘Compendium’, finally appeared and it took up residency at the Amazon’s Top 40 for a duration. Duffy had already reformed The Lilac Time in 1999 and critical acclaim started to pour in as if to correct the omission of the first time around.
‘Looking For A Day In The Night’ has now been succeeded by ‘lilac6’ which is all you could expect and much more. The more might have come in after Duffy turned 40 and decided not to make music anymore but dedicate his time to travelling around. A non-tabloid daily ran a story portraying the artist as a failure. In a twisted world we live in two publishers thought it a worthwhile subject for a memoir.
During the process of penning his recollections Duffy would take a break by writing songs. And he wrote some to take your mind off the daily grind, to transport you to the deepest emotional levels, to guide you to the world where thought and emotion can co-exist without being condescending. There is the sense of happiness that might only be enjoyed in vicarious bursts on the opening ‘Dance Out Of The Shadows’ or later in ‘I Want To Be Your Man’. Girls and the sense of being imprisoned in one’s own life’s experience are the main themes.
Fragile chords, harmonious melodies and a vocal that takes you by the hand to the magic-land and the album’s first single ‘This Morning’ was more than enough of a re-calling card. Among this song treasury, some with an elegant whiff of country-rockism, there a couple of instrumentals (written by elder bro Duffy, Nick) to lull you on a sail of beauty. Topping it all is ‘Jeans + Summer’ a pastoral trawl through the fields bordering a psychedelic plot.
‘liliac6’ is an album for music lovers that enriches soul, mate.
8/10
SashaS
4-10-2001
The Lilac Time’s ’lilac6’ album is released 08 October 2001 on Cooking Vinyl
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