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In all the Listening To My Own Record JOY... er... i mean, WORK going on at the moment, it's lovely to get a chance to listen to something new by someone ELSE, especially when it's something GRATE by a band who are ACE.

Imagine then my excitement the other day when I saw online that the marvellous Pocketbooks had a new album ready to roll, along with a free download single Promises Promises, ready for download now. Reader, I downloaded it.

And - PHEW! - it was FAB. As usual with this lot it's a bouncy pop word-filled thrill ride, but with a marked UPPING on the Production side of things. One of the downsides of my current position Listening Critically to our own MIXES all the time means that I end up doing it with other people too - I got quite annoyed by DONOVAN the other week, for instance, for his criminally LACKADAISICAL attitude to mixing. Honestly! Listen to some of his late 60's singles, it's as if he said "Yeah, whatever, the first mix'll probably DO, I've got a yoga class to get to".

ANYWAY, you probably don't need to be in a State Of Enhanced Listening to notice how LUSH the song and, indeed, the whole ALBUM sounds (I "pre-ordered" mine, TWITTED about the fact that i could have got it much quicker by getting it at Indietracks next week, then LO! it arrived through my door two days later! HOORAH for MOANING!). They've got some of A Little Orchestra on board for STRINGS, which bumps the whole sound up a LOT, but the whole production sounds lovelier, not least on account of an increase (i think) in the multi-tracking of Emma's vocals. Hmm... lots of violins and multi-tracked Emmas, who'd've guessed I might like the sound of THAT? But everything else sounds UPPED too, there's a THROB to the whole thing that carries through on the promise of the EXCITING LIVE SOUND of the first gigs of theirs I saw. It basically sounds like they've always been SUPPOSED to sound, which is GRATE!

The WORDS have also fallen into more of a GROOVE too - they've always had LOTS of words in their songs, and I am OBVIOUSLY not going to complain about THAT (if I did i suspect Mr S Hewitt and Mrs E Pattison would come round my house and FITE me for denying it all these years), but on the first album there were occasions where they seemed to clatter together a bit. I don't mean this as ADVERSE CRITICISM, more as a STYLE POINT, but this time around it feels as if someone's come round beforehand and, METAPHORICALLY SPEAKING, tidied the seating up a bit. There are still lots of words but they all fit smoothly, like well planed carpentry gliding together, which accentuates the individual character of it all. Again with the Critical Noticing, but there's one song that ends with the word "dissipates" and I thought "Ooh, i wouldn't have chosen that word Andy" and then realised that that is RATHER THE POINT. I don't think anyone else would - the lyrics have blossomed into a kind of POINTED DELICACY that mark them out as a style unique.

That said, there is one glaring omission I can't help but point out - one of my favourite songs is "The Sky At Night", which rather brilliantly concerns losing your loved one to a telescope, but which CRIMINALLY skirts close to, but never actually USES, the phrase "Lost In Space". Come on! "Lost In Space!" It's not too late to repress the entire run and stick that in!

Apart from that it is a DELIGHT from start to finish, and I get the feeling it may get BETTER too - four or five listens in I'm starting to wonder whether some of the songs might be LINKED? I'd heartily recommend downloading the single and also getting the album, which is, as I say, available to pre-order now and will be on sale next week at indietracks. Go on, you will like it, it's GRATE!

posted 22/7/2011 by MJ Hibbett

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