‘The Wishes of the Dead’, is GEOFF FARINA'S latest album, his first in a lengthy twelve years. Geoff was with the band Karate for twelve years: a fusion of indie, punk, blues and jazz. Unfortunately Geoff had to leave Karate in 2005 due to developing hearing problems. Now, seven years on, he's emerged as a full fledged folk singer songwriter, and some of the tracks on this album are very acceptable indeed.
There are ten tracks on the album, all of which broadly fall within the acoustic folk category. Geoff’s guitar playing is neat and suits the songs very well. What sets this album apart from thousands more within this genre is the lyrics – Geoff seems to have swallowed a dictionary. The lyrics are both simple and complex at the same time, with a fine turn of phrase, but I will admit there were certain words that even I had to look up to ascertain their meaning.
The opening track ‘Prick Up Your Ears’ is an acoustic guitar track with lyrics that incorporate a large amount of religious imagery, while at the same time still retaining the gentle parochial feeling that The Kinks ‘Village Green Preservation Society’ generates: - “Steeples reach from canopies, doors are locked but marquees mark each diocese/ Each one tells of heaven’s knells, blessed resonance of the Elysian bells/
Redemption, know it aint easy, and I aint gonna wait for your rapture.”
The track which follows is ‘Prelapsarian’, a word I had to look up on the internet, which in fact is a (religious) historical term referring to a time before the fall of man - i.e. the age of innocence. You following this? Once again this is an acoustic guitar track, and once again the lyrical imagery is very much to the fore: - “Time to heal. Redressed wounds take forever to congeal”, which comes across as slightly disturbing, as does “numb skin, vellum thin.”
‘Twilit’ is another good track, this time with a classical guitar style and a more direct approach with the lyrics to what appears to be relationship difficulties: - “Screaming secrets across the lawn/ Dreaming sleepless until the threat of dawn/
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No more crying, no more second trying is gonna quiet these twilit liaisons.” There is also the lovely line “ain't no bravery in your depravity”, which suits the song perfectly!
‘Make the Show’ appears to be a track all about the endless rounds of touring and some of the problems it can involve. The lyrics in this one are rather more prosaic: “Cut across Connecticut, just three left in the van/ To unload before the sun, it’s all that we had planned/ Stop for the snow, hell no! We had to go to make the show.” There is some quite good storytelling here involving accidents, the threat of legal action and advice not to tell the truth.
The final track on the album, ‘Semantics’ comes across as the mutant offspring of Dylan’s ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’, but for the modern generation with all the problems that come with today’s life: - “Baby’s cryin’, breakfast’s fryin’ smell its heathen, breathing, teething, teasing/ Sunflower kitchen curtains mute the screaming, the screaming, scream.”
'The Wishes Of The Dead' incorporates interesting ideas and injects some new life into the folk genre. However, Geoff's phraseology can be a double edged sword, on the one hand it can show the cerebral nature of the song and the artist, but on the other, it can be seen as impenetrable and wilfully oblique. See, us journos can always counter with our own lyrical dexterity, can't we?
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