I really can’t make up my mind about this six-tracker from Turning Plates, about whom I know absolutely nothing. I’m usually capable of being decisive when it comes to music, and I can almost immediately place it into one or the other of the two main categories: ‘good’ and ‘crap’. But this... this is different. It’s not as straightforward as all that.
There’s a grand feel to the title track, which combines elements of folk and prog and binds them together with rich blasts of brass and an almost overwhelming sense of the epic. The bombast works in its favour and saves it from being just another folky number.
It’s a charge that could perhaps be levelled at several other songs on here, but again, the sense of grandeur is often a redeeming feature. But then, there are other points when I can’t help but feel that Turning Plates have teetered onto the wrong side of being comedically self-important: the marching drum of ‘Wishing Well’ is portentous, but then clunky lyrics like (‘Come on weary limbs / take me where I might begin / fighting every step / because of the one who steals my breath’) and the self-consciously Celtic twirls are more pretentious.
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I’m getting some severe splinters from all this fence-sitting, but really, it’s such a tough call: the line between genius and madness, audacious and preposterous is indeed a fine one, and Turning Plates walk it seemingly without realising the perils of their predicament. This makes it all the harder: if it was parodic, it would be somehow less fun than it being an earnest effort, but then by the same token, the thought that they might be incapable of comprehending why their music might be considered amusing in its sense of importance is troublesome.
The jury is hung, so on balance, I think it’s fair to go with a fence-sitting five.
Turning Plates Online
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