Some GREAT pop rock songs!

Reviewed by C. Cross, 2005-12-30

This is a pretty uneven album, but it contains some really great songs. The first two, "A Single Kiss" and "For This One", especially (with it's R.E.M./Ocean Blue-ish jangly guitars), are absolutely classic songs which unfortunately nobody has ever heard (even if they borrow heavily from those two bands). These two basically trump the rest of the tracks. After "For This One" is where things start to get uneven, but in no way are the other songs bad. The rest seems to leave the extreme catchiness of the first two tracks in favor of more generalized pop rock. It's not bad, but it doesn't always work as well as it probably could have - most of them have sections where the musicianship is interesting or the lyrics are good which helps the song even if the entire thing isn't that great. The singer, fortunately, also has a very pleasant voice which I think most people will love. Because a good number of the rest of the songs contain these interesting moments, and the fact that the first two songs are so great, I give this 4 stars. Recommended for jangle pop fans as well as the curious.

Highlights include:
"A Single Kiss"
"For This One"
"Abba On The Jukebox"
"Last Summertime's Obsession"
"The Far Too Simple Beauty" (parts of)
"Do People Ever?" (parts of)
"A London Story" (parts of)
"Saffron, Beautiful & Brown-Eyed" (parts of)

More Than Love

Reviewed by Martin Dawson, 2002-07-23

Introduction/Clarification/Apology...What follows is, rather helpfully, not a review of 'The Rainbow' ep by Trembling Blue Stars and is, in fact, my review of their first album, 'Her Handwriting' which was released on Shinkansen records here in the UK. When that edition was deleted it was necessary for Amazon to similarly delete the item from their website. And my review appears to have ended up here. For which I'm grateful. It could just have been deleted too. Anyway, buy 'The Rainbow' because it is very good and the following should give you a flavour as to what to expect from this genuinely great band. Now here's that review...

An attempted summary:the band take their name from 'The Story Of O'("It is true that eyes can resemble stars-hers were like trembling blue stars...");the album title comes from a track by Aussie indie romantic heroes The Go-Betweens;this is singer-songwriter Bobby Wratten's third band after The Field Mice and Northern Picture Library;and the first words on the first song are "She's gone...".
Even the unitiated will realise almost instantly that this is an album of loss and I don't really want to dwell on the particulars,documented as they are almost instead of analysis of this album.Which deserves better...
'A Single Kiss' is the opener referred to above;gentle,gentle music and for me the greatest use of the pregnant pause in music("She says that she wants me..."-wait for it-"...to consider us over.")and I think by then you either love this and want more.Or it's too much.
'For This One' is nearest in feel to Field Mice territory,all jangly guitars and cooing vocals but it is with 'Abba On The Jukebox' where we hit the classic moment.This was the first single released on Shinkansen after Matt and Claire called time on Sarah Records;chiming guitars,quiet but insistent percussion and simple lines reminiscing about the better times in a relationship now so obviously over."Her swinging on a tyre/Me taking her picture/A station frozen in time...".Everything is windswept and rainy."Her sleeping head on my shoulder/With the bus moving on/The day out-done...".
'The Far Too Simple Beauty' is an instrumental.And simply beautiful.(Sorry!)
'Less Than Love' hopes for a miracle in terms of a reunion but realistically knows everything is over between the once-lovers...The trick of the song is to recognise that when your love is gone to hold those two contradictory feelings at the same time is perfectly normal.The final nail of "You and him are one..." really does hit home.And remind me why I love this band so...
Critics will always say Bobby Wratten is just writing the same song over and over again.And I say 'So what?' It is,in many ways,the only song worth writing('We Were In Love And Now You're Not')and shares an afinity with great poetry.The recently heartbroken could do worse than listen to this whilst reading 'Song' by ee cummings..."love was and shall/be this only truth/(a dream of a deed,/born not to die)/but worlds are made/of hello and goodbye..."
'Saffron,Beautiful And Brown-Eyed' kicks in like a dream...and there you have it.This is not easy listening and emotionally it's often uneasy listening.But gloriously so.And I find I keep coming back to the word 'beauty'.Like Mr Wratten himself.So that's where I'll end...