Talking Elephant 2023
– The Weather At World’s End:
1997 To 2022
Esteemed music journalist reveals his other vocation and leads his coterie of friends into reflective jubilance.
Those who used to read music press know Colin Harper’s writing, the talent expanded into authoring books and, lately, augmenting various box sets through extensive liner notes; much fewer aficionados of folk rock are familiar with the songs the Irish scribe has been penning for decades to perform among a loose agglomerate of kindred spirits. One should assume such a specialist is bound to be the harshest critic of his own tuneful creations – and Harper is, indeed, which goes a long way towards explaining the low profile of the albums Colin issued with the collective that, sometimes, assumed different names to suit the circumstances – so corralling two scores of his numbers on a single disc feels like a cause to celebrate the legacy the ensemble amassed over the last quarter of a century.
Here’s the feeling summarized, to an extent, in the brass-splashed “Free, Free At Last” which, riding on Harper’s guitar riffs and Ali Mackenzie’s bass runs, gives proper soul-swagger to the second part of “The Weather At World’s End” that’s focused on a pop veneer of its pieces – some in previously released form, other remixed or edited – and arranged in chronological order, save for the exquisite finale of “Testament” where the listeners get to hear Colin’s own soft vocals and the opening salvo delivered by a brace of fresh cuts wherein the infectious psychedelia “All We Need Is Love” builds a firm link to classic rock tropes on both lyrical and melodic levels. Of course, there are topical songs like the piano-laden anthem “Greta Thunberg At The End Of Time” or the punk-spiked, boisterous “Northern Ireland Politicians” but those are overshadowed when the timeless balladry of “Psalm 19” and “When You Needed” – the former a congas-and-flugelhorn-spiced hymn, the latter one of the earliest offerings on display whose sheen can’t conceal the tracks’ traditional roots. Factor in the starkly alluring angst behind “The Fields Of July” on which Harper doesn’t play and the jovial chug of “Ride, Ride” which draws on country, and the collective’s stylistic spectrum will seem to have no frontier.
Colin and his compadres see a silver lining even in the environmental gloom of “When It’s Gone” and offset it with effervescent instrumentation, and pour sunshine in the organ-oiled “Aztec Energy” that’s voiced with much grace and gusto by the legendary Alison O’Donnell, before aligning themselves with Joni Mitchell and Ralph McTell in “Don’t Go To Nashville” to pledge allegiance to creative originality. Not for nothing the album has an important bonus on digital platforms, the breezy “Dear Anne” which captures the band during one of their rare concert appearances and proves their dexterity is able to exist beyond the studio walls. And not for nothing this comp’s title, a portmanteau of sorts of two song titles, suggests the songs here provide a perfect snapshot of global and local affairs everybody should relate to and, thus, signals the robust quality of Colin Harper’s music – a guarantee there’s a project to stand the test of many more years than twenty-five.
****4/5
