Reading a press release is sometimes like reading a recipe. It reeks of utilitarianism but you’re thankful for all the careful detail put into its one to two pages. The press release for Anthony Reynold’s debut release (British Ballads) starts off by describing the album as “beautiful music for drunken librarians.” It’s a fairly dead-on assertion for an understated album full of Neil Diamond-like crooning and plenty of lilting strings. Any bitter drunk (librarian or not) knows that the bottom of the bottle is a spiny affair─full of regrets and loneliness.

Despite this, the Cardiff native tries to make sure his Ballads aren’t all manifestos/dirges for the anti-social. The former helmsman of the cult band Jack brings along his musical pals to the bar to work out his woes. The impressive roll-call of guest collaborators includes artists such as Dot Allison (One Dove, Death In Vegas, Hal David, Peter Doherty), John Howard, Simon Raymonde (Cocteau Twins and Bella Union Records founder) and the legendary folk chanteuse Vashti Bunyan.

Ballads is full of loneliness, despite all the company. It’s no coincidence that a piano is at the centerpiece of many of these songs since historically its’ associated with bars. Reynolds holds onto the dusty corners of books, so he’s not too keen of about the jukebox or DJ era. On his acoustic manifesto-confessional “A Quiet Life” he wholeheartedly rejects the 21st century’s trappings (“dogshit and children and rude shop assistants No, no thanks“) in humorous fashion.

Reynolds likewise injects each track with hisses and pops and dry readings of poems he loves. It doesn’t come as a big surprise then when he sings “I don’t like those kind of poems, those kinds of poems that rhyme, don’t tell me stories with happy endings, because loving feels like stealing and stealing is a crime.” Reynold’s insular thoughts are all out for display and you would think the whole song would buckle under all the self-pity.

Reynold’s slow croon especially smacks of Neil Diamond on this track. Diamond before he got lost in a sea of panties and kitschy theatricality that is.

The musicians’ constant slouch toward “the last bar on lonely street” on “The Quiet Life” is lifted by lovely backing vocals. Reynolds is quite the bookwarm so he would love the Yeats reference. His song on the other hand, digs its own grave as it plods along. The rousing chorus and drunk piano meandering on “Where the Dead Live” builds up for a rousing choral finish with John Hayward. It’s a grand drinking song that some people will never discover because it takes a while to get moving.

It’s interesting then that many tracks feature intros full of radio channel sine waves reaching into infinity before finally coming across that one lone song that pricks up your ears late at night. On “Country Girl” it works nicely. Vashti Bunyan is as enigmatic as usual and the song is full of secret agent violin stabs of trauma. It’s a dangerous tango between the two performers. The sorrowful strings and heavenly choir on “Just So You Know” adds extra weight to the tack piano and Bunyan’s whispered voice. Simon Raymonde adds (I’m assuming) his tortured electric guitar wails into the mix as well. The one song that seems to have the biggest heartbeat is seems like it could be one of the album’s most cloying (“Song Of Leaving”). It’s slick Pulp-meets-Neil Diamond pop showmanship weasels its way into your heart though.

It chugs along nicely in its ramshackle way (all tambourines and big guitar solos) but it feels out of place on an album that seemed so stuck in such mire (albeit somewhat of a memorable one). Maybe Reynolds is turning a new leaf for his sophomore effort.
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Links
Anthony Reynolds [official site] [myspace]