Nick keeps pace with himself and enters the next round with his new solo album. It's now the fourth album since 2010, and Nick doesn't seem to be running out of ideas. Once again, it has become a varied and highly interesting work, and one gets the impression that Nick takes all the time and peace to hone the album into a cohesive unit according to his vision.
Musically, Nick continues to stick to the method of playing most instruments himself via keyboard. This has become established for him and works at least as well as on previous albums. It's noteworthy that Nick himself moves more into the vocal foreground; while on past albums he only sang on individual tracks, here he takes the lead vocals on three songs. But we also have two old acquaintances with Tony Patterson and Andy Neve (only background vocals), and female voices are again represented by Ginger Bennett, Louise Young, and Clara Sorace.
Instrumentally, Nick carries the album mostly alone, except for a guitar contribution by John Greenwood and an appearance by Steve Hackett - this time, surprisingly, not on guitar! The intro in the opener is spoken by Nick's lyricist Dick Foster, who is also responsible for the lyrics here.
And they are once again very successful! Thematically, the album takes us back a few centuries this time, and according to Nick's description, it's about love, loss, and revenge. Of course, the album has much more to offer; a common thread has run through all of Nick's albums so far, but here it's much more than just a shared concept, as we hear a story about piracy, seafaring, and crime, which accordingly often takes musical maritime paths.
The parrot, which also adorns the cover, has an important significance for all these events. In the booklet, we get some explanations and clarifications about the historical context on which the album is based - and thus also some sources of inspiration for individual songs. Although influenced by this, the story of this album is entirely its own, beginning with the third song, while the first two songs take us into the time and place of that world and thus attune us to the story.
It all begins quite inconspicuously with an old chest that arrives as an unexpected inheritance from a long-forgotten relative. This titular "strange inheritance," as Dick tells us, contains some obscure objects, such as a walnut shell, a red ribbon, a few playing cards, two wooden sticks tied together with snakeskin, a few silver coins... and the mortal remains of a parrot. All these antique things together make up the story of the album, and each song is dedicated to one of these relics.
An Almost Silent Witness (10:07)
The clock strikes 4 and the old chest opens. The opener begins after a short sound collage with an airy guitar rhythm and the chorus, which, like the whole song, is written from the parrot's perspective. The verses are similarly rhythmic, albeit somewhat calmer with string and percussion elements. What's immediately noticeable is how fitting Nick's singing is. As with the previous album, Steve has his guest appearance already in the first song - but not on guitar, but on harmonica! Several such passages extend over an instrumental middle section, which simultaneously represents the highlight of the song.
From the outset, it was Nick's idea to incorporate Steve on this instrument, as a guitar solo wouldn't have fit so well into the marine atmosphere... in any case, a brilliant move! After a short bridge, the chorus returns, instrumentally subdued, but vocally in the style of a shanty choir. You don't have to like this style, but it's extremely appropriately staged at this point.
The lyrics give first insight into the 90 years of adventure that the parrot has experienced; the almost silent witness is thus both the parrot itself, who has experienced the story of the album first-hand, but also the listener. Once again, Nick proves his excellent feeling for strong openers that already anticipate the overall mood of the album.
Blood Money (4:45)
String and piano cascades open the next song. Tony Patterson's rough voice sets in and tells of the Spanish invasion of the Caribbean in the mid-18th century, when plundering was the order of the day. The wooden crosses mentioned in the text stand for the religion that the invasion brought - as an unfair exchange for gold and silver. Blood Money begins and ends almost with the chorus and has an extended middle section. John Greenwood's guitar contributions fit in well, the song is quite carried by guitars, even though Nick sometimes uses the organ quite prominently. Thus, the track forms a good transition between the opener and the third song, which represents the beginning of the actual story.
Philadelphia (5:16)
Philadelphia also begins with the sound og guitars (this time played by Nick on the keyboard). Nick sings again and tells us the tragedy of Philadelphia, which doesn't refer to the city, but to a maid. He manoeuvers well vocally through the verses, the short chorus in between shows through textual variations that the plot of the song becomes dramatic: Philadelphia is expecting a child from the son of the family she serves and is subsequently cast out, while the family's son is sent to sea. This uncertainty is well underlined musically. The song is rather quiet until the escalation, where Philadelphia ends up on the street and has to defy all the dangers there, which is emphasised by harder electric guitars and organ... Nick is rarely heard so rocky and almost with a metallic swing! Finally, she has to give up her child shortly after birth, but leaves him half a walnut shell on a chain, the counterpart of which she keeps. The song subtly increases its intensity before it breaks out and shows that Nick can also handle harder passages very well vocally.
At Night At Sea (5:54)
Philadelphia seeks refuge at sea, and so the next song acts as a point of calm, as shady and mysterious as a night crossing. At Night At Sea can certainly be considered a gem in its mystical, restrained manner, for it is precisely this that makes the song so intense. In this respect, it could also pass as perfect musical accompaniment or setting for one of Edgar Allan Poe's sea voyage stories. Here too, Nick again deviates from the usual verse-chorus scheme. The first and last verses are held in a slightly off-kilter 5/4 time, the part in between shines with various, sometimes somewhat oddly sounding strings that adapt to the mystical mood. Very fitting to this is also the music video with Nick sneaking around on the night ship with a lantern.
Important is the line "a life behind, a life ahead, here suspended on a spider's thread": Philadelphia has left a life behind, but possibly also has a completely new one ahead. And just when you think the song is ending, Nick plays himself into the foreground with a piano coda that takes the song to another level and certainly evokes memories of what Nick played almost 45 years ago on Steve's album Defector on the piano-driven song Hammer in the Sand.
Four Winds (8:14)
The only instrumental on the album is in its first moments a drastic increase from the previous track, where strings were used rather discreetly, now breaking over you like a storm on the high seas. Four Winds is divided into four sections, each dedicated to a cardinal direction (or rather the mythological figure of the respective direction). The first part, representing the frosty north wind that brings ships off course, musically evokes several associations: Nick imitates an entire orchestra, the piece begins with mighty power somewhere between the soundtrack of Pirates of the Caribbean and Emerson, Lake & Palmer's magnum opus Pirates - it's always impressive what kind of arrangement can be created with relatively simple means.
The south wind remains rather shadowy and phantasmic, hovering in the background as a sound backdrop, while the saddest of the brothers, the east wind, brings harmonically very beautiful chord progressions - sometimes with strings, sometimes with piano. Finally, the west wind, which brings ships safely home, at first doesn't sound like a triumphant homecoming at all, but rather portrays the hardships and deprivations of the journey behind you. Ultimately, however, the arrival in the safe harbor drowns out the difficult journey and brings the instrumental to a peaceful end.
Four Winds represents Philadelphia's crossing over dangerous waters, where they are confronted with many emotions from fear and despair to hope and confidence; accordingly, the instrumental unites different moods within itself, but manages to bring everything together and rightly resonates in the middle of the album with its very special mixture of elegance and wildness.
Welcome to the Island (5:19)
Into this melancholy breaks a short drum storm, which leads into a quite rocky rhythm underlined with brass. Ginger Bennett's voice gives the track a mysterious shadowiness, even if it musically goes straight ahead at first and Nick once again proves to us in a fulminant instrumental part what good guitar solos you can get over the keyboard. Philadelphia has arrived on a Caribbean island, which, however, turns out to be far less paradisiacal than one might suspect. The middle section, with its jungle-dense instrumentation of percussion, marimbas, and xylophone, is certainly one of the most interesting sections of the entire album and is reminiscent of some sound worlds from Peter Gabriel's solo albums. The indigenous, choral singing was already an element on Catharsis and comes into strong effect here again.
Subsequently, the intro is picked up again, but at half tempo, which gives the song a dramatic boost towards the end. Here, Philadelphia meets John, her once lost love, who has now made a name for himself as a pirate called Jack, or Black Jack, and decides to accompany him. In its colorful instrumentation, Welcome To The Island sets itself apart well and forms a skillful transition to the finale of the album at this point.
Black and Scarlet (5:22)
The penultimate song begins again rather classically rocky and multi-voiced, with Tony Patterson singing the verses solo. Black Jack has been found guilty of piracy and is to be executed; this dramaturgy is indicated in the first half of the song mainly through the dynamics of the tempo changes between verse and chorus, supported by a brisk violin solo. The actual finale begins with the second half, in which Black Jack first ends up on the gallows. Philadelphia loses him for the second time, but now definitively, and decides out of revenge to take his place in the role of pirate. The ship departs now with a female captain and she was to become one of the most feared pirates.
This is reported to us by the parrot, who resumes the narration in a reprise of the chorus from the opener. Thus, the circle closes and we now know where the "Life ahead" mentioned in At Night At Sea really goes; and from Philadelphia's previous life, only the walnut shell on her chain remains, which she continues to wear as a pirate. With a not too dense choir, the piece is faded out, after it is made clear to us that the parrot, as a kind of keeper of secrets, will not tell more... instead, he gives a gloating and dirty laugh; as tragic and stirring as the events were, he seemed to have enjoyed being their witness.
To Whom it May Concern (5:36)
After the relatively hectic previous tracks, Nick has saved the ballad for the end. Similar to the respective finals of Children of Another God and N'Monix, this song is kept quiet and it represents a last message from Philadelphia, which she wrote in a letter and stores in a chest. She leaves this with all the other relics she collected from the chest to whoever can draw the right lessons from it. Louise Young sings very intensely about the echoes of long-gone days, and at the end, Nick himself chimes in once more to convey the central message "live by reason, not by fear". The lyrical part ends relatively early and leaves room for a longer instrumental conclusion, in which Nick can still shine with solos from guitar and clarinet. Thus, the end of the plot is somehow conciliatory despite the tragedies.
Hidden, and thus left to individual interpretation, remains where the chest ultimately came from and who the mysterious relative is who stands between the recipient of the chest and the pirate. A relative of the child she had from John before he became a pirate? Or someone else entirely who happened to come across the chest? Inevitably, one wonders if it's even important to know this. Musically, this song at the end of the album could be overlooked at first, as it initially seems somewhat inconspicuous. But slowly it can reveal itself as a pearl, for it may need a few runs to really unfold its full emotionality. But once it has done this, it can no longer be shaken off, and so the conclusion of the album is definitely a grower.
Nick has once again not disappointed and presents a really well-done and very rounded album that sounds multi-layered and, despite an emotional story, doesn't bring the exuberant pathos that often resonates in the subtext of concept albums. He once again manages to compensate for the largely missing band through keyboard programming and makes the album sound lively and entertaining. Nick often dispenses with a typical structure of verse and chorus, and overall the album offers great musical balance and dramaturgy. It thus stands in no way behind its predecessors.
Although it sounds very maritime at times and brings typical trademarks of music about seafaring, Nick doesn't overdo it with these elements. He uses them as well and pointedly as, for example, the mediaeval elements on the predecessor album Catharsis and proves a good hand for a coherent, homogeneous, and consistent overall sound. The artwork, by the way, is again successful here and designed to fit the atmosphere of the album. The wait for Nick's new album has definitely been worth it.
Author: Ole Uhtenwoldt
New classic album 2018 from Tony Banks, feat. Nick Ingman.
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