The Tall Ships by It Bites! (TIBMP 2008)
Once bitten, twice assured
The Tall Ships Tracklist
1. Oh My God (5:49)
2. Ghosts (4:47)
3. Playground (5:34)
4. Memory of Water (4:51)
5. The Tall Ships (6:19)
6. The Wind That Shakes The Barley (8:14)
7. Great Disasters (5:01)
8. Fahrenheit (5:18)
9. For Safekeeping (5:29)
10. Lights (4:56)
11. This is England (13:51)
12. When I Fall (4:41) (European edition only)
These Words (6:03) (Japanese special edition only)
The Tall Ships Lineup
John Mitchell: Lead vocals, guitars, bass guitar
John Beck: Keyboards, backing & harmony vocals, bass guitar
Bob Dalton: Drums, backing vocals
Produced by It Bites!
It Bites! are unlikely to thank me for saying so, but they are best known for the late-eighties hit single, Calling All the Heroes, from their first album, The Big Lad in the Windmill. Coming at a difficult time for heavy and progressive rock, Calling All the Heroes was quite an achievement, reaching number six in the UK singles chart and the band even appearing on BBC One's Top of the Pops. It became a millstone, however, with the record company demanding more of the same, whereas the band wished to follow a more experimental approach. They split in 1990, amidst alleged disputes over control, and singer-guitarist-writer Francis Dunnery went on to work with Robert Plant on the Fate of Nations (1993) album. He was discarded when Plant reunited with Jimmy Page, and embarked on a solo career. Following a number of reunions with different frontmen, It Bites! returned with Arena guitarist, John Mitchell, who also took on lead vocals.
With Oh My God, It Bites! start as they mean to carry on with sharp Yes-like harmonies, bright keyboards and tasteful guitar playing. The vocals tend to be high and the pace is continually fast. Previously, John Mitchell had been employed by bands like Arena as a guitarist first and singer second, but he has been a hidden vocal talent. Like his famous predecessor, Francis Dunnery, he sings in a high register and has an excellent voice - you never hear him sing out of tune. Also like Dunnery he is an outstanding, but slightly understated, guitar player. The pace does not slow for Ghosts, with John Mitchell sounding like Ray Wilson of Stiltskin on Scared of Ghosts and even uses the phrase, 'Walking in Your Footsteps,' from the latter's second single. Ghosts has a catchy synthesizer melody and an adept guitar solo. The third track, Playground, is a marginally slower ballad, with symphonic keyboards and pounding drums from Bob Dalton. He is a fine drummer, never too showy nor shuffling, but always appropriate to Beck's keyboards and Mitchell's guitar.
Memory of Water has a slightly distorted voice, organ backing and, again, swift guitar. The middle instrumental section is quite heavy with a characteristically speedy guitar solo. The title track, opens with soaring harmonised guitar and keyboards, reminiscent of Dave Flett-era Manfred Mann's Earth Band. If anything, the guitar is getting even faster, but The Tall Ships is an epic piece, being one of the longer songs on the album, at just over six minutes. Mitchell's singing is superb throughout, on what is a beautiful arrangement. It closes suitably enough on a haunting hornpipe synth. Organ playing across two channels develops into a second epic work, The Wind That Shakes the Barley, another of the longer tracks, this time at more than eight minutes.
Great Disasters has a scat-***-nonsense vocal motif, along the lines of, 'Dumbri umbri ayoh, dumbri umbri ayoh, ee oh ho ayoh o-oh oh oh, oh ayoh o-oh oh oh,' reminiscent of The Police, while the arrangement is similar to other seventies high vocal/ bright guitar groups like 10cc, Pilot and City Boy. There is even a touch of Billy Joel in the lyrics and it ends on synth like an A-ha song produced by Alan Tarney. TypicalIy of It Bites! a downbeat song is disguised by very upbeat instrumentation. Indeed, Great Disasters is a master stroke and this is the track to which I keep returning . . . and returning. I need not bother, as it has taken permanent residency in my head! I have read there is a radio edit, but have not been able to track it down.
Farenheit (great name for a song) is catchy and has Mike Rutherford-style guitar in the foreground with multilayered synths and organ in the background. It Bites! are unfairly labelled a progressive band with 'pop' tendencies, but this song is the closest on The Tall Ships to a commercial ballad. The pace is beginning to slow, with sparse sections, although Mitchell's guitar is rarely far away from hard rock and he could not play a bad note if he tried. The Genesis connection and sparcity of voice/ piano/ synthesizer remain for Track 12, For Safekeeping, with Mitchell in Peter Gabriel vocal style added to big guitar chords, Supertramp piano, Beatles 'sighing' harmonies and trademark soloing. Lights is another catchy song carried along with a particularly high voice, sparring guitar and keyboards, and chorus in a stirring manner akin to Big Country. It contains the curious line, 'So let’s go out tonight, I feel the space between us.'
Of all the tracks on The Tall Ships, This is England, the longest piece at over thirten minutes, is intended as the magnum opus. It is another song in the second half of the album with a sparse intro, this time a quiet glockenspiel-sounding synthesizer and voice. The first part brings to mind Prefab Sprout, particularly in the voice, yet the pulsing keyboards, spiky guitar and punchy drums are all It Bites! At around the five minute mark, Beatles harmonies and cello sound introduce the 'This is England and you love me,' line, followed by psychedelic wurlitzer-style keyboards and a surreal spoken word passage. The final third (at about ten minutes) has almost a hymn in, 'There once was a vicar who walked in this garden . . . ,' Linking all the parts of This is England are the lyrics, but, otherwise it sounds like three distinct songs, and serves as a prototype of the band's next studio record, a concept album, Map of the Past (2012).
The European bonus track, When I Fall, has many of the aforementioned elements, that is high voices, harmonies, sparkling guitar, catchy melodies, with a deliberate scratchy record sound effect and a paradoxically dissonant and supremely melodic guitar solo. The Japanese 'special' edition of The Tall Ships has a close harmony track called These Words, which really should have been on the European release. Thankfully, The Tall Ships received high praise from the media and fans alike, prompting the lineup to release a couple of stopgap live albums and eventually a studio album in Map of the Past. Let us hope there is more to follow from this scintillating band.
March 2013