A genuine lost classic! (Promenade - The Divine Comedy)

Member Name: Rumblefish

Product:	Promenade - The Divine Comedy
Date:	26/07/00 (36 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Nearly every track exceptionally good

Disadvantages: None

Neil Hannon poses at the entrance to the Louvre on the cover of PROMENADE, an indicator that he was now fully embracing the unashamedly artistic and literary pretensions hinted at on LIBERATION. Indeed 'The Booklovers' is simply a recitation of authors' names put to music, and the album is littered with cultural references all the way through to its final line.

But don't think that it is a snobbish or inaccessible record - it is quite the opposite. Sales of this album were quite modest, despite critical acclaim, which is bewildering when it is such a brilliant and fascinating collection of pop songs. It continues where LIBERATION left off with echoes of The Kinks and Scott Walker, but by now Michael Nyman and Noel Coward had been thrown in for good measure.

'Bath' starts out as minimalism then about thirty different instruments start playing, while 'A Seafood Song' is a joyous paean to, well, seafood. 'The Summerhouse' is a bittersweet remembrance of lost love, and 'A Drinking Song' ("We're drinking to life / We're drinking to death...") a magnificently exuberant exploration of spiralling decadence. Many devotees of the band would acclaim 'Don't Look Down' as their finest ever song. Musically complex, it is at first an apparently innocuous love song that finally becomes a theistic debate with God himself ("And to be frank, I find that life has more appeal / ...without a driver who's asleep behind the wheel.") The album's final track, 'Tonight We Fly' is a string-led fantasy proclaiming the wonder of the world, and could hardly be more uplifting.

The Divine Comedy went on to achieve real commercial success with their later work, yet they have never quite equalled this virtually flawless album. PROMENADE should find a place in almost any record collection.

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