The Korgis 2025
If he created us in his own image, why do we feel completely unfinished? British master of rambunctious melody turns his provocative concept into sonic spectacle and comes up trumps.
Let’s Play the God Game
“If there is any justice in the world, this great work will be banned and memorabilia burned,” proclaim Al Steele’s liner notes to “Let’s Play The God Game” after explaining the album’s gist. Genesis as a computer simulation designed by the titular demiurge, a software engineer whose name, Gordon, got jumbled with the passing of ages: a fine idea, indeed, and one dangerously close to reality, too. There’s no deficit of musical opuses dealing with deities in both pro and con aspects, yet most of those don’t deny religions the right to exist, whereas this platter finds Steele leading an extremely melodious assault, in the company of kindred spirits, on faith per se. Complementing, rather than contrasting, their sarcasm and gentle irony, catchy tunes and contagious lyrics more than help bring Al’s message home, but his atheistic diatribes-in-disguise still seem more brutal than the political mini-operas of "ALienated Nations" offered to create another conceptual context.
Steel may be hosting a cast of characters here, and taking on the principal role himself, while handling most of the instruments as well, but all the arresting performances ultimately serve the music and subject in equal measure, the haunting title track interspersing the aural comedy and the recurrent cabaret-esque dirge of “When Is He Coming Back To Save Us” providing a leitmotif to settle in the listener’s mind and linger on as an aftertaste. As luxuriant orchestral arrangement envelope such balladry-driven numbers as “When I Create Man” and Al’s vocals get engaged with Lorna Darknell and Elain Gilmore’s voices – the ladies impersonate, respectively, Demeter and Eve, before Danielle Nicholls’ pipes bring the Big G. to life on “Even A God Will Give In” – and jangly guitars rocking on “Chip Off The Old Block” to shape logical contrast, the album’s flow and charm become difficult to resist. Any why resist it anyway? If “Sometimes It’s The Little Things” and “Pressure Cooker” sound a tad histrionic, these pieces’ pop patterns reign supreme to oppose their electronica-tinged simmering anger at the divine developer that’s prone to mistakes, yet the folk-influenced “Here Comes The Rain” admonishes him with rare elegance and genuine sympathy.
So let the brass-laden “Come Summer” and riff-propelled “Lucky Jim” tap into disco with retro-energy, and “Second Coming” embrace gospel sway: stylistic scope doesn’t matter on this record – the entire spectrum of it does. Sure, vignettes like “The Passing Of Time” and unspoken word which are left in the booklet, except for a snippet in the platter’s finale, might flesh out the wondrously caustic experience, but there would run a risk of smothering the entertainment factor of it. In the otherwise miserable world, however, having fun is a prerequisite for any true believer in humanity.
****1/2
