Adrian's Album Reviews

The Polyphonic Spree



The Beginning Stages Of 9 ( 2002 )
Part 1 ( Overture, Holiday ) / Part 2 ( It's The Sun ) / Part 3 ( Days Like This ) / Part 4 ( Call Your Father ) / Part 6 ( Interlude ) / Part 7 ( Hangin' Around ) / Part 8 ( Soldier Girl ) / Part 9 ( Reach For The Sun ) / Part 10 ( Exit Music )

Let's forget that the leading light behind The Polyphonic Spree used to be in Tripping Daisy. I certainly don't care, because this project is pretty different from Tripping Daisy. Let's just say that The Polyphonic Spree are a self styled Choral Symphonic Pop Band, and be done with it. They have a full choir of singers numbering well in excess of twenty, and the entire band dress in white robes. Strange fellows. The instrumentation includes Viola, Tablas, Trumpet, Guitar, Piano, Flute, Farfisa, Tambourine, Moog, French Horn. What is this, 'Pet Sounds' by The Beach Boys? I only bought the damn thing because a little sticker was on the front on the CD and it mentioned The Beach Boys as an influence. Funnily enough, they sound more like recent Flaming Lips ( at least, 'Soft Bulletin' Flaming Lips ) than The Beach Boys, although the influence of both is mixed in, as well as god only knows what else, no pun intended. Anyways, at least one of these songs numbers amongst the most beautiful songs I've heard in my entire life. Which is nice. Before that however, we have the opening two 'stages', the first of which opens with strings and Piano, an extended song introduction that sounds so delicate and soft it surely doesn't exist in the same modern music world inhabited by Garage Rock and Dance. It does, though, which is actually one of the most remarkable things about this entire Polyphonic Spree project. At a time when doing something new in music is becoming increasingly difficult, these guys have done something new. The full choir of voices that explode through 'Overture, Holiday' certainly make themselves heard, trumpet accompanies them, the Piano continues, add in bells and other percussion and effects. Something startling, something dramatic, and some way to open any record. "la, la, la" go 'the choir', "soon, you'll find the answer" goes the lyric, and there you are. The second stage, titled 'It's The Sun' opens right away with the full choir of voices, a lead vocal enters sounding very Mercury Rev / Flaming Lips, Trumpet carries on where it left off from the opening track, everything is very Symphonic Pop, indeed. Good stuff, too.

'Days Like This' is so delicate, beautiful and light, so touching and like being in heaven that words cannot express. If The Polyphonic Spree do anything besides the use of certain instrumentation that is Beach Boys, it's in creating very simple songs, sort of a Beach Boys 1968 kind of 'post ambition' vibe. Having said that, the mere idea of this record is ambitious. 'Days Like This' has a very simple lyric, yet it remains incredibly moving. The music makes good use of Keyboards, Piano, Flute, subtle guitar here and there that you can hardly hear. Drums that sound not so much played as softly caressed. The vocals are truly lovely, and yeah, this is the song I was talking about earlier that I called one of the most beautiful i'd ever heard. In contrast, stage four is a two minute blast of noisy drums, noisy vocals, all sorts of weird and delightful noises to lead into the fifth stage ( titled 'Middle Of The Day' ) and an art kind of instrumental piece with only a few minimal vocals added to some lovely quiet harmonies. 'Interlude' is another 'mood' piece like the track that proceeded it, 'Hangin Around' is delightful pop that shares the sound of the rest of the and 'Soldier Girl' an absolute highlight, a life-affirming string arrangement, simple yet perfectly effective melodies and a vocal refrain and hook that stays in your brain long after the song has finished playing. 'Reach For The Sun' opens quietly, builds up and reaches a section that is quintessential Polyphonic Spree if such a thing exists, and rather marvellous this section sounds too. The album loses at least half a point for the final song, a remarkable thirty six minutes of pure nonsense vocal noises heavily mucked about with. I could sleep quite happily to this final track, but I don't want to listen to it that often, although it does have a certain hypnotic effect. But, you know. This album still gets a nine. It really is that good.

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Readers Comments Jonathan Tuzman tuzmusic@hotmail.com clicked on the "agree/disagree" link, and i agree with your review, i like it a lot. i'm curious as to where you got the song titles, cause these are the titles i originally got before the newer 679 version came out with slightly different titles. i'm emailing cause of this though: Let's forget that the leading light behind The Polyphonic Spree used to be in Tripping Daisy. I certainly don't care, because this project is pretty different from Tripping Daisy. Do you have a problem with tripping daisy? what are you saying? I've got the same version of the album you have. the artwork doesn't list any titles, so I took them from RealOne player when listening to the album through that particular piece of software. As for Tripping Daisy? No particular problems.

We all know by now that Polyphonic Spree are a bunch of twenty or so robe wearing songsters. We may or may not know that their debut split the music listening audience somewhat. Those that thought it was music, indeed, sent from the heavens and others, those frowning people, who thought the whole project was pretentious and monumentally silly. Well, sometimes silly is good, too. The song titles reveal that, like the debut, this is less a collection of 10 songs than a mini-opera of sorts or musical theatre. The parts are intended to form a whole sum, like a mathematical equation it's hard to make sense of the constituent parts without an answer at the end. That's my problem actually the second time around. The first time I didn't care what the question was, much less the answer. Now, come a second album, with the band themselves so much more knowing and aware of what makes them tick, the importance of not only a question but a universal answer becomes so much more important. So, what is the purpose of 'Together We're Heavy', where is it taking us? Is it meant to even matter what happens at the end of the story, if not, why am I wasting my time passing through, however picturesque the scenery happens to be? Back in the Sixties for example, the sunshine surf pop of The Beach Boys got better and better and better until it led somewhere, 'Pet Sounds'. Even before 'Pet Sounds' however, there was always a sense of forward motion in their music and that came about from their LPs. The Polyphonic Spree with 'Together We're Heavy' have thrown a lot more trumpets at the equation, taken what they believe has worked and omitted what they believed didn't work. The result strangely is less than we thought it should be. They haven't introduced any new aspects and as a result, have merely moved sideways along the same journey.

At close to an hour long this album, with three songs combined together lasting around twenty five or so of those minutes. Inbetween those lengthier pieces we receive the glorious pop of 'Hold Me Now', as life-affirming as anything you can mention from the debut. 'One Man Show' drops the choir of voices to concentrate on piano, vibes and a single vocal. The lyrics here have meaning, the decoration of subtle strings and brass works well and this is one of my favourites on the LP. It's a song with structure and purpose with great lyrics and when around the three and a half minute mark it theatens to explode with noise, we're kept waiting because it never happens. Quite clever. Of the longer songs, the multi-segmented glory that is 'Suitcase Calling' certainly twists the emotional knife and sends you someplace. I'm not sure where the place is, but my heart bursts several times during this song, nearly every time. 'When The Fool Becomes A King' on the otherhand sounds like Queen crossed with ELO and The Beatles and ultimately threatens to fall off its perch to have a very nasty fall. The closing track kind of whispers at you with a hint of an unexpected depth through wordless vocalisations. It's a great way to wind the LP down, bit of an inconsistent effort all told, but still enough to make me want to buy their 3rd LP when it appears.

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Once there was a Polyphonic Spree that didn't just hammer you on the head with bags of sugar or poke you in the eye with sticks of candy coloured Blackpool rock. It does seem true, the more they try the less they fly. 'The Fragile Army' is an exhausting forty seven minute listen, every single song having layers of vocals and instrumentation that threaten to overwhelm themselves. The songs themselves seem to lack genuine depth and soul, not a problem two albums back, but much more of a problem now. A couple of moments clearly do shine however, although for different reasons. 'We Crawl' is a finely constructed pop song in true Polyphonic Spree tradition. It has light and shade, not everything is loud and joyous, just the choruses, which is how it should be. 'Light To Follow' is a genuine moment of diversity on an album crying out for the tempos to differ and the massed vocals and instrumentation to just take a rest every now and then. Opening with just a shuffling beat and a bass line, the vocals are initially whispered. Later on, once the song gets going, we get a harder hitting Polyphonic Spree, with even the occasional rock guitar line. Does it for me. That's all we really want different from Polyphonic Spree, something slightly off the beaten track rather than constantly trying to impress with the same old trick.

One thing that has improved for 'The Fragile Army' is the standard of musicianship. The band sound in fine fettle underneath the bombast and occasionally overbearing arrangements and productions. 'The Fragile Army' suffers though from a malaise many modern day albums do, the levels are all turned upto to the proverbial 11. This further removes any chance the songs had of obtaining genuine dynamics. I can imagine the whole thing would sound so much better live and perhaps that's now the only further direction this Polyphonic Spree project can take, a live album of all brand new songs. It would at least, if nothing else, be different.

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Readers Comments Eddie eddie123zeppelin@hotmail.com I can see where your coming from with this review, the album is overproduced and over arranged at times, and it gets a bit much on songs like "Oh I Feel Fine". But it seems like that has clouded your judgement on what is still a very good album in my opinion. There is plenty of variation on this album. The title track starts off with just piano and vocals, before emerging into something that wouldn't sound out of place in a light hearted musical. "Overblow Your Nest" starts off very atmospheric; it sounds great when the 2nd chorus come in, probably the most passionate vocal delivery in any spree song.