Bang goes the knighthood --- The Divine Comedy --- 2010 (Divine Comedy Records)
We touched on this very briefly during our “Beginner's Guide to the Divine Comedy” back there just before Christmas, but now I want to take a deeper look into the latest (so far) album by Neil Hannon. The album is the first to be released on his own label, breaking a nine-year association with Parlophone, who have released the last three of his albums, going back to 2001's “reinvention” on the album “Regeneration”.
It opens on slow organ and piano, with a lazy, laidback vocal from Neil on “Down in the street below”, then all of a sudden the tempo kicks right up, sort of in the vein of “Tonight we fly”, Neil's vocal stronger and more upbeat, the orchestra cutting in and some very boppy percussion carrying the track along. It's quite a surprise --- not that you should ever try to anticipate anything when listening to the Divine Comedy! --- the song changing so suddenly and sharply. And then it goes back to the lounge style of the opening, with just the piano, some woodwind and light percussion, and then the orchestra comes in strongly again, taking the song to an emotional climax, Neil singing almost like Barry Manilow as he steers for home, and the track ends on a recurring piano melody to fade.
Piano then carries in “The complete banker”, fast, sharp, staccato, the orchestra joining in as the song runs along at a decent pace. Not surprisingly it's a song about those responsible for the worlwide financial meltdown as he sings
”I loved it, making a profit from somebody's loss/ I never knew exactly whose money it was/ And I did not care as long as there was lots for me!” Very topical, sharply satirical, just what you'd expect from Neil. Great guitar solo too, oddly reminiscent of the one in the Carpenters' “Goodbye to love”...
In the style of some of the songs from “Casanova”, the pace stays fast for “Neapolitan girl”, with some nice jangly guitar and I think violins maybe? Kind of a bossa-nova beat to it. Maybe. I'm not one hundred percent sure what bossa-nova sounds like, but I think it sounds like this. The title track is carried on finger-walking piano and accordion, giving the song, inevitably, a French feeling, also a flavour of Tom Waits (whisky flavour probably!), then urgent, dramatic organ changes the tone of the song for a moment before it slips back into its piano groove, almost film-score in its style. Funny little song which seems to be concerned with dodgy things the aristocracy get up to:
”Crack goes the whip/ And if anyone should tell/ Bang goes the knighthood as well!”
There's more of a pop flavour to “At the indie disco”, going back to the style used on his earlier albums in places, particularly songs like “Your daddy's car”, “Europop” and “The pop star's fear of the pollen count”. With guitar and violin it almost manages at times to evoke ELO, the Electric Light Orchestra, and in places Tom Petty too. “Have you ever been in love” is classic Divine Comedy, brings to mind the likes of “The frog princess” and “A woman of the world”, with some nice orchestration and a feel of forties movie music, then it's almost tango rhythm for “Assume the perpendicular”, run on piano again, bright and breezy, with finger-clicking (or castanets, not sure which) and good backing vocals.
There's a great little piece of pure rock and roll then in “The lost art of conversation”, piano again leading the way --- I'm assuming Neil is sitting behind it --- and the overall feel of the album is of a great sense of fun, which is often the case with Divine Comedy albums, though not always: parts of “Casanova” were very dark, and “Fin de siecle” had more than one serious tracks. Which is not to say there are no serious subjects tackled on this album --- financial irresponsibility is no laughing matter --- but Neil handles just about every subject with the same
joie de vivre and witty satirical comments that characterises most of his work.
A lovely little “Tubular Bells” intro to “Island life”, then Neil duets on the song with --- who? I don't know, the lady is not credited. But it doesn't really matter, as the song is fairly empty: not quite throwaway, but definitely filler, and the weakest track on the album, where it really feels as if Neil isn't trying, for once on this album, and just taking the easy way out to pen a pop song, fairly vacuous, unless there's some comment in there I'm too thick to recognise. “When a man cries”, on the other hand, is a tender, powerful, bitter ballad, taking as its subject the often uncomfortable matter of men breaking down, as we're never supposed to. A woman can cry and elicit sympathy, a friendly arm around the shoulder, a hug or indeed get what she's looking for, but a man crying is generally frowned on, so we keep it in mostly, afraid to let our vulnerability show.
Neil captures this perfectly when he sings
”When a man cries his body shakes/ And his eyeballs ache/ And his mind vibrates/ But he doesn't make a sound/ Don't want to wake the house now.” The tune is beautifully crafted to suit the lyric, and this should indeed go down as one of Neil's best and most competent songs --- and
that list is pretty long! I would probably mark it as the standout on the album. Changing the mood totally, “Can you stand upon one leg” sounds to me like Manilow's “Can't smile without you”: boppy, tapalong, harmless, kind of a comedown after the majestic insight of “When a man cries”. Even the note-held-for-an-incredibly-long-time at the very end is just annoying.
Closer “I like” is a decent rocker, not a bad track to end on, simple enough but again a weak track compared to some of the good stuff that has gone before it. You'd have to say the album ends on a weak note, having been generally so strong all the way through.
So “Bang goes the knighthood” is not a classic album in the mould of “Casanova”, “Liberation” or even “A short album about love”, but it is a very good album with some excellent tracks. It's let down by some rather formulaic stuff later on, but the good ones really do more than make up for the bad. There are some great ideas on the album, some fine musicianship and as ever some extremely off-the-wall lyrics. But then, that's how we like the Divine Comedy, how we like Neil, and in the end, though his knighthood may be gone bang, you certainly can't say the same about his talent, artistry or his sense of sharp-minded fun.
I like. Mostly.
TRACKLISTING
1. Down in the street below
2. The complete banker
3. Neapolitan girl
4. Bang goes the knighthood
5. At the indie disco
6. Have you ever been in love
7. Assume the perpendicular
8. The lost art of conversation
9. Island life
10. When a man cries
11. Can you stand upon one leg
12. I like
Recommended further listening: “Casanova”, “Liberation”, “Promenade”, “Fin de siecle”, “A short album about love”, “Victory for the comic muse”, “Regeneration”, “Absent friends”