This is HOWL GRIFF's second English language album. They also have a debut album in their native Welsh apparently. Well, on seeing that they were another bilingual Welsh band with a heritage in Welsh language Psychedelia I was hoping I was about to hear a cross between Super Furry Animals and Datblygu with maybe a hint of Manics thrown in.
Sadly, not quite. They suffer somewhat from a forgettable factor that they seem to have in spades. Not much wrong with the sort of soft background wallpaper very mildly frazzled soft Psychedelia they play it's just that even listening to it for a fourth or fifth time I still don't have a song I'm looking forward to hearing.
That said I do like the echo on the vocals on opening tune You Don't Have To Leave On Your Own. It builds as the singer spills his guts as to why she shouldn't go home and stay with him instead. He sounds like he's had a few and is just begging her in the vain hope of getting his end away.
Then we get a super wimpy, pass you by like a winter wind love song. To some poor woman whose love is like a Fragile Diamond. It's the lead single and well they have a little miracle Baby and everyone is overjoyed and every one lives happily ever after fairytale style over flock wallpaper, summery shimmery sounds.
By the time we get to the third song Sharkfins in the Sky, about the only thing that stands out are the three part backing vocals that might just hook you in. Even being about a real life murder at an ice rink underneath the band's studio didn't make the lyrics grab me. Having heard it last 20 minutes ago it's since gone again.
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On Runaround, I have to say they have a very cool Mick Ronson-ish guitar part on a song that sounds like it could be by someone like Human Hands: that odd late 70's LA keyboard Psych sound.
A few tunes later, finally, we get to the one song I remember hearing ever time I've played it. She Walks On By The Flame, which is the stand out track by miles. It's the tune I'd seek out to listen to; an almost perfect power pop single; totally effective and it has a nice tale in the lyrics. At last - a tune that isn't wallpaper.
Even as he sings "What Do You Take Me For?" at the end of Fussbukker the temptation to scream "Wimp!" at him is one option. "Saddo!" might be another, or you might pick "singer, the choice is yours."
The album finishes with Everything: a sappy, sweet soul psyche song, that played late at night would be the song for curling up and going to sleep with. As he sends you into the land of nod telling you that love changes everything, as he tells us to move on it is to deep sleep we go.
It's just a bit too soft for my tastes to be honest. Howl Griff are just too bland to stand out no matter how well they play and 'Fragile Diamond' doesn't grab me.
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