Roland Orzabal - Tomcats Screaming Outside
In lieu of this years release by a reformed Tears For Fears, I felt this old gem from my Intune.org days could be resurrected.
Roland Orzabal
Tomcats Screaming Outside
2000 Eagle Records
Roland Orzabal
Eagle Records
Produced by: Roland Orzabal and Alan Griffiths
Personnel:
Roland Orzabal - vocals, guitar, keyboards, programming
Alan Griffiths - guitar, keyboards, programming, ambient mayhem
David Sutton - bass
Nick D'Virgilio - drums
Some of you are scratching your heads at the name...I can hear it over the wire (that, or my DSL service is weirder than I thought). Why does Roland Orzabal sound familiar? Well, he has written and produced songs for folks like gospel/soul singer Oleta Adams, and one of the growing population of Icelandic faery-waiflings Emiliana Torrini. Oh, and he sang, performed and produced the majority of his multi-platinum success as one half (later the total of) Tears For Fears.
Ok, before the sound of the moronically overplayed on 80s flashback stations Shout causes your ears to bleed, hear me out. This is a bloody brilliant album. It is so well done in its performance and so mature in its compositions that it kind of threw me way off when I first caught up with it. While TFF became famous for the pretty boy looks of original member Curt Smith and Orzabals pre-grunge era cerebral angst anthems, the band was not just a juggernaut of MTV kitsch. Orzabal was admittedly more intellectual and more capable a musician than most of his contemporaries, and his search for new sounds meant that even towards the end of the TFF era in 1996, he was still experimenting and expanding. And while each TFF album had its own stamp -Elemental was pure slick AOR, Raoul and the Kings of Spain a grounded quirky romp, and Sowing the Seeds of Love a Beatles meets Stax Soul era and art-rock boulliabase - TSO is an amazing anthropological index of all that he has done before, synthesized with new sounds in a more tightly wound performance. Strangely enough, when Orzabal finally puts out an album as a solo artist, it sounds the most like a coherent band effort (when he was in (or simply was) TFF, it seemed like Orzabals benign dictatorship over roving hordes of other TFF members and session musicians aplenty).
And mind you, Alan Griffiths has shown he knows what he is doing, and having topline drummer Nick D'Virgilio is a big plus (listen to Kevin Gilbert's The Shaming of the True and Beware of Strangers with his own band, Spock's Beard) as he is not only deft with the sticks, but a good composer and studio knob-twiddler in his own right.
Probably the best highlight of this album is that Roland really uses his voice, something you would get hints of in songs before, but now he appears quite comfortable going from soft melody to belting it without much pause. His vocal power is akin to U2s Bono or Jim Kerr of Simple Minds, but his delivery is neither as faux-soapbox-soul as Bono and as pontificating as Kerr. Some really standout spots include Kill Love and Dandelion. He falters a tad on the mid-tempo For the Love of Cain but otherwise, solid. His vocals on Hey Andy! are both melancholic and diffuse, lending to a feeling of the song in its depiction of death, loss and identity. Low Life is a sarcastically menacing tune replete with shimmering guitars during the choruses to shift the pacing.
Speaking of guitars, Roland goes for textural sonics as opposed to soloing (say what you like about 80s pop, but the guitar solos in Shout as well as portions of the entire Sowing... album had some deft six-stringery flying about). This is not to say the album lacks punch; if anything TSO goes for a dense sound without the need for lots of drop D tuning or walls of distortion. Under Ether is almost six minutes of vertigo inducing buildup and release...the whole song is as vast as the Sahara (helped by the Middle Eastern flavour of the guitars and pummeling drum fills). Dandelion swirls around and around and drops you flat on your ass, and Bullets For Brains, while a little too preachy lyrically, starts at a gallop and does not relent until its last few notes.
Some of the standout cuts are real surprises; Under Ether is just staggering, Hey Andy! and Snowdrop wire together pop lushness with jungle style electronica that leans close to what folks like LTJ Bukem and Big Bud do, only with more vocals and less bleeps. Day by Day by Day by Day by Day is a little bit of trip hop meets updated new romance, although a stupidly repetitive title. Hypnoculture starts as a Deep Forest rip-off but eventually tumbles into an absolutely driving bassline and layers of liquid synth washes.
While so many 80s stars go on nostalgia package tours or mine the same sound of the 80s for niche audiences who can't seem to escape 1983 and pants with too many damn pockets, Mr. Orzabal has actually done something impressive - an album of fresh tunes, and a clean, full sound that claims new territory for an old dog that many may have written off, and certainly should not have.
Roland Orzabal
Tomcats Screaming Outside
2000 Eagle Records
Roland Orzabal
Eagle Records
Produced by: Roland Orzabal and Alan Griffiths
Personnel:
Roland Orzabal - vocals, guitar, keyboards, programming
Alan Griffiths - guitar, keyboards, programming, ambient mayhem
David Sutton - bass
Nick D'Virgilio - drums
Some of you are scratching your heads at the name...I can hear it over the wire (that, or my DSL service is weirder than I thought). Why does Roland Orzabal sound familiar? Well, he has written and produced songs for folks like gospel/soul singer Oleta Adams, and one of the growing population of Icelandic faery-waiflings Emiliana Torrini. Oh, and he sang, performed and produced the majority of his multi-platinum success as one half (later the total of) Tears For Fears.
Ok, before the sound of the moronically overplayed on 80s flashback stations Shout causes your ears to bleed, hear me out. This is a bloody brilliant album. It is so well done in its performance and so mature in its compositions that it kind of threw me way off when I first caught up with it. While TFF became famous for the pretty boy looks of original member Curt Smith and Orzabals pre-grunge era cerebral angst anthems, the band was not just a juggernaut of MTV kitsch. Orzabal was admittedly more intellectual and more capable a musician than most of his contemporaries, and his search for new sounds meant that even towards the end of the TFF era in 1996, he was still experimenting and expanding. And while each TFF album had its own stamp -Elemental was pure slick AOR, Raoul and the Kings of Spain a grounded quirky romp, and Sowing the Seeds of Love a Beatles meets Stax Soul era and art-rock boulliabase - TSO is an amazing anthropological index of all that he has done before, synthesized with new sounds in a more tightly wound performance. Strangely enough, when Orzabal finally puts out an album as a solo artist, it sounds the most like a coherent band effort (when he was in (or simply was) TFF, it seemed like Orzabals benign dictatorship over roving hordes of other TFF members and session musicians aplenty).
And mind you, Alan Griffiths has shown he knows what he is doing, and having topline drummer Nick D'Virgilio is a big plus (listen to Kevin Gilbert's The Shaming of the True and Beware of Strangers with his own band, Spock's Beard) as he is not only deft with the sticks, but a good composer and studio knob-twiddler in his own right.
Probably the best highlight of this album is that Roland really uses his voice, something you would get hints of in songs before, but now he appears quite comfortable going from soft melody to belting it without much pause. His vocal power is akin to U2s Bono or Jim Kerr of Simple Minds, but his delivery is neither as faux-soapbox-soul as Bono and as pontificating as Kerr. Some really standout spots include Kill Love and Dandelion. He falters a tad on the mid-tempo For the Love of Cain but otherwise, solid. His vocals on Hey Andy! are both melancholic and diffuse, lending to a feeling of the song in its depiction of death, loss and identity. Low Life is a sarcastically menacing tune replete with shimmering guitars during the choruses to shift the pacing.
Speaking of guitars, Roland goes for textural sonics as opposed to soloing (say what you like about 80s pop, but the guitar solos in Shout as well as portions of the entire Sowing... album had some deft six-stringery flying about). This is not to say the album lacks punch; if anything TSO goes for a dense sound without the need for lots of drop D tuning or walls of distortion. Under Ether is almost six minutes of vertigo inducing buildup and release...the whole song is as vast as the Sahara (helped by the Middle Eastern flavour of the guitars and pummeling drum fills). Dandelion swirls around and around and drops you flat on your ass, and Bullets For Brains, while a little too preachy lyrically, starts at a gallop and does not relent until its last few notes.
Some of the standout cuts are real surprises; Under Ether is just staggering, Hey Andy! and Snowdrop wire together pop lushness with jungle style electronica that leans close to what folks like LTJ Bukem and Big Bud do, only with more vocals and less bleeps. Day by Day by Day by Day by Day is a little bit of trip hop meets updated new romance, although a stupidly repetitive title. Hypnoculture starts as a Deep Forest rip-off but eventually tumbles into an absolutely driving bassline and layers of liquid synth washes.
While so many 80s stars go on nostalgia package tours or mine the same sound of the 80s for niche audiences who can't seem to escape 1983 and pants with too many damn pockets, Mr. Orzabal has actually done something impressive - an album of fresh tunes, and a clean, full sound that claims new territory for an old dog that many may have written off, and certainly should not have.
posted by theloniusfunk at 2:43 AM
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