I'm giving a lot of 10s these days. But if an album just couldn’t be any better; and if I would have bought it anyway; and if I've already played it far too often for reviewing purposes, then I see no options: 10 it is. W&H reviewed SHATNER's "Energise" back in 2005, gave it 8 stars and called it "illogically good". "Thirteen O'Clock" is definitely illogical, but it goes much further than good. At every level and in every department it's a classic.
Captain of the Ship Jim Bower has a recording history going back to the early 1980s. It’s quite clear from the writing, the production and the performances on this album that he has been listening and learning the pop song trade ever since. Punk, post-punk and power pop would be his specialist fields. "(I Think I'm) Turning Japanese" by THE VAPORS might be a key reference. Insanely catchy, densely packed, seamless pop perfection is the aim: and of the 13 songs not one misses by more than a whisker.
Single "Anticlockwise" is the heart and soul of the conception. Bower's laconic vocal delivery leans like a battered old-timer on a glistening track that tears through the changes. Riffs and phrases are flung from one bar and one instrument to the next with reckless glee. At three minutes 51 it seems more like two minutes. So much is packed in, so little is repeated. Like some Swiss-engineered chronometer it has pace, balance, weight, elegance and efficency as standard. There are pop bands out there doing very good business who pack less into a whole album than this one cracking tune.
Good as it is though, it still doesn’t put the other 12 tracks into the shade. A labour of considerable love and self-belief, the album makes sure that every song has its own distinct delights. Vocal melodies, stinging guitar riffs, perfect keyboard excursions, emotion tugging chord shifts, crisp and crunchy percussion and roaring bass lines are guaranteed. Claire and Sarah's precisely used vocal tracks add considerable extra Spector-depth. Care has been taken to make sure that each track has a sound of its own.
Bower's vocal style, remorseless pace and the theme of passing time provide the unity. Everything else is subject to creative variation. Fresh guitar and keyboard sounds, in particular, bear witness to the breadth of experience and inventiveness that 25 years on the fringes of the business have accumulated. Whatever you hear on one track, or in one verse - there will be something new in the next. My personal highpoint is the subtle opening and emotional depth of "You Made It Happen".
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Lyrically, the man has hit a vein of effortless simplicity. Like Paul Simon or Carole King he has a knack of making each syllable sit just so on its note, without any need to distort the vowel or confuse the syntax. The lines flow like natural speech, but pack in the meaning like old-style film scripts. It's a rare gift. In "It's Time", just for one typical example (with its echo of George Harrison in the guitar part as a secret bonus) we have the mordantly funny lines "I feel it deeper every day / I feel it in my DNA / And something fundamental screams / From every fibre of my genes" - delivered so unobtrusively and naturally that the pleasure and fun of it only gradually strikes home. Similar treasures are buried in every song.
I have no doubt at all that the organisation of mass market music in the UK will ignore this album completely. SHATNER themselves have no illusions about the fate of music that is too good to be patronised. (The abjectness of the "industry" is itself a leitmotif within the album). I ruefully note that every song on this album (unlike the obscure music that I usually go for) would brighten up and sound perfectly right on any of the mainstream BBC Radio daytime broadcasts - One, Two or 6Music. The themes and dreams would certainly find plenty of kindred spirits. In the post-internet world we should be seriously asking why programme controllers exert such a craven grip on their output.
You will probably need to buy this on-line: direct, as they say, from the manufacturer:
www.shatner.info
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