Although the website is 'LEVYtheband' and both guitarist Matthew Siskin and bassist James Broughel are retained from the line-up that made LEVY'S eponymous debut, you sense these days that this is frontman James Levy's show in...well, I was about to say in all but name, but he's got that sorted too, hasn't he?
Whatever, 'Glorious' has no intention of hiding its' celestial light under a bushel, thank you very much. Although stylistically it has little desire to deviate from the Smiths-y, Anglophile pop of its' predecessor, this time the production is ultra-widescreen and the slightly forlorn, little-boy-lost quality that made the debut such a lovely record gives way to a series of full-blown angelic anthems.
Crucially, though, it's all beautifully realised and the tunes remain utterly top notch. Yes, at times the sort of gorgeous melancholia that epitomised 'Levy"s best moments comes bubbling to the surface - try the quintessentially lovelorn 'Lady Nicole' or the staccato pounding of 'King James' on for size for starters - but this time round Levy have widened their sonic net to take in the whippy, Velvets-style guitars and chromatic drama of the excellent 'Holy Water' and shine the big ballad spotlight on tunes like 'Love And Pain', where James demonstrates just how much self-assurance he possesses these days. Hell, during the romantic pop epic of 'Squeeze' he even cheekily references both 'Love Me Tender' and 'Love Me Do': leaving you in little doubt of the kind of company James Levy would like to be keeping years from now.
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And if he can keep producing the blissful set pieces that generously fill out 'Glorious' then he might just be on course, because with songs as classy as the divine title track ("God bless the world, it's so glorious...God bless the ones you've lost") and the loss'n'longing-drenched 'So Hard' (complete with naughty swear word, ooh!), Levy are going to take some beating in the long run.
Levy are due to come over to the UK for a concerted push in the New Year, but on 'King James', the man himself already sounds sure of the outcome when he sings "I'm the king, I'm the king of this town." On this form you wouldn't bet against him, either. For once, an album title provides us with a very accurate adjective to describe the contents within.
(www.LEVYtheband.com)
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