MONEY - Suicide Songs
- Written by Kenneth McMurtrie
I’m sure bands have been required to pay up for having songs sound less like one by a venerable act, even when employing the ostrich defence as favoured by a Mr. S. Smith. Then again Suicide Songs’ opener ‘I Am The Lord’s resemblance to The Beatles’ ‘Within You Without You’ maybe doesn’t quite tick enough boxes to require legal action. Either way it’s a languid start to the band’s second album, ably stating that it’s business as usual, albeit with a bit more orchestration thrown in than on debut The Sound Of Heaven.
Overall the same air of melancholia persists (& the cover art is certainly less uplifting than that of its predecessor) but the strings that pad out a few numbers lend a positive note to the proceedings. Whatever the obvious comparisons that could be made the first time around the band this time echo the sound that Verve, before the forced addition of a The, achieved on their pre-Britpop albums. This is particularly visible on the eight minute ‘Night Came’ although they don’t go down quite the same road in terms of thrashing guitars at the song’s peak. Nonetheless there’s a kinship.
Brass is a major feature of the album’s title track, which is much needed as it’s a song that doesn’t really do more than say what it is (“Your suicide song”). Which is the album’s biggest fault – at only nine songs in length you’ve less room in which to let a couple of duffers go unnoticed and you can’t escape the fact that this number basically wastes two minutes. Extended in a live setting it could well gain purpose anew but in its recorded form it does nothing.
The Sound Of Heaven was something a bit different when it came out but not something I’ve chosen to play for many months since. Suicide Songs is obviously less different as the band have carried on from where they left off, for the most part and, whilst that in itself isn’t a fault of any kind, I can well imagine not playing this album a great deal in the future either, despite the rousing penultimate tune ‘All My Life’ and the cracking title of closer ‘Cocaine Christmas And An Alcoholic’s New Year’.
