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Album Review
by SashaS
8-4-2005
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| Woodbine: focus on beyond-horizon... |
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Woodbine: 'Best Before End:'
(Domino)
Woodbine: in tune with nature’s subderma
Remodel, reshape, remake… That’s what creativity has become: pick up two [or more, if you are ambitious] artists and rearrange their elements into something similar. Yeah, the death of originality has been ravaging mass culture for a long, long time. With the way the industry is constructed nowadays, there can’t be another band like U2 - because no-one is allowed to make mistakes and learn from them.
The requirement is to be all pre-packaged for quick exposure on some dodgy TV show that would provide 15 seconds of sales. Well, it almost is like IKEA-style pop. There are still people who believe in the power of music, its mellifluous beauty, its subtle ability to gladden one’s tragic life… Such as Woodbine, the Lancashire trio.
‘Best Before End’ is an album that takes the influences, dust them off and re-phrase the varied dictionaries into this intriguing whole that is delicate, minimal and utterly irresistible. Some mysticism blows through this soundscape, there is fog rushing in, the sounds of nights as quiet as a church clergy vacated years ago…
Starting with ethereal ‘Cope’ it is a journey into [mainly] acoustic lands that are populated with noble notes, hypnotic chords and dreamy voices for a quiet retrospection on own personal issues. Combining folk, acoustic pop, soft rock, with angelic vocals backed by heavenly instruments Woodbine continue the proud tradition of great British artists - part Young Marble Giants and Sandy Denny - with serious nod to the greatest of them all - The Beatles. The ‘Morning Starts Cold’ recalls the Fab-Four’s latter period that made us look up credits, in particular that the third song is entitled ‘I Feel Fine’.
This disc, a follow-up to the eponymous debut from 1999, is so full of golden moments you wonder if it is deep spring already. This music is in tune with the nature’s rhythm but it is not only a lovely compliment to the decaying humanity it also appears to resolve issues… ‘The Woods’ could be used, perhaps, by Prince Charles instead of talking to the plants? And, if he gets rattled by his wifey-to-be, the Royal Chuckster may try ‘Me Me Me’ to relieve some angst…
Susan Dillane (vox, keyboards, guitar, beats), Rob Healey (guitar, tambourine, keyboards) and Graeme Swindon (guitar, vocals, bass, skins, beats) are the trio who are responsible for this sparse but gorgeous disc. As mellow and sensual as nubile skin…
The album‘s title ‘Best Before End’ applies to the band - suspecting that rather than having very erratic working method they are believers of “quality takes time”? - but also to the culture that is being suffocated by all and sundry.
8/10
SashaS
8-4-2005
Woodbine’s album ‘Best Before End’ is released 11 April 2005 by Domino
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