The Hepburns continue in their easygoing happy/sad indie-in-an-'80s way with How the Fallen Are Mighty -- any album that starts off with a breezy half-minute instrumental that sounds like it should be the opening credits music for a breezy BBC travelogue from 1973 has to have something going for it. If the band's portrayals of understated love affairs and entanglements often feel either more pleasant and wryly engaging than whip-smart or suddenly universal, it's all done with an attitude and focus that are never less than ...
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The Hepburns continue in their easygoing happy/sad indie-in-an-'80s way with How the Fallen Are Mighty -- any album that starts off with a breezy half-minute instrumental that sounds like it should be the opening credits music for a breezy BBC travelogue from 1973 has to have something going for it. If the band's portrayals of understated love affairs and entanglements often feel either more pleasant and wryly engaging than whip-smart or suddenly universal, it's all done with an attitude and focus that are never less than enjoyable. Matt Jones' singing matches the performances very well, at once understated and yet having a bit of gentle yearning. The occasional harmonies -- sometimes turning into a massed chorale approach, as on "Delores" -- sweeten the impact. Having a song called "Nobody Loves Me" that is a third-person portrait rather than a first-person one is actually an inspired touch, especially after Morrissey seemed to corner the latter market. The arrangements benefit from extra keyboards and other instruments adding a gentle grandeur to songs like "One More Notch on the Bedpost"; the sax break on "The Help" not only helps the understated ska rhythm but adds its own fun energy. "Persona Non Grata," meanwhile, sounds like a great lost Sparks song from 1975 -- for that reason alone, How the Fallen Are Mighty deserves a little attention. ~ Ned Raggett, Rovi
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Add this copy of How the Fallen Are Mighty to cart. $16.95, new condition, Sold by Radio Khartoum, ships from Berkeley, CA, UNITED STATES, published 2010 by Radio Khartoum: khz210.
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Originally released: 2010. Have you ever wondered what your friends say behind you back? Not the edited version, the spin or the pitch, but the backstabbing, the barb and the bitch? The Hepburns (Wales) have returned with an album championing the ordinary, the downtrodden and the broken. That said, HOW THE FALLEN ARE MIGHTY also just happens to represent The Hepburns at their cattiest, as they skewer couch surfers, hack writers, sexual taxonomists, civil servants, store greeters and (more often than not) themselves at every turn. With the exception of one track ("Growing Old", a devastating but quite possibly optimistic haiku to the fading mind), HOW THE FALLEN ARE MIGHTY is all barb, all bitch, all the time. Although the starting musical reference point remains classic guitar pop (think Brilliant Corners, Smiths, Lucksmiths), inspirations from outside the genre abound, encompassing the barbershop-meets-Yazoo of "Delores" (ode to a glowering cashier), om-pa-pa for jazz guitar, tuba and tub-thumping narrator ("One More Notch on the Bedpost"), Addams Family-meets-Specials-meets-The Pink Panther-meets-Charlotte Bronte ("The Help"), car-chase instrumentals ("Save Your Stories for the Police, Maurice"), growling 50s musical camp (the indignant Matt Jones reveling in his social status as "Persona Non Grata") and the angular, bass-forward groove (in-kraut or post punk? ) of "Man Missing." Equally at home next to your Jake Thackray, Momus or Monochrome Set records. The Hepburns' songs have been covered by Swedish artist Testbild! and have featured on Café Après-Midi and posthumous él Records collections (despite the group's having been signed to parent label Cherry Red, rather than to sub-label él). The group's first album saw its second Japanese reissue at the end of 2009. "'How the Fallen Are Mighty' is the work of a poet. A mosaic of witty, fantastical, individualistic songs that sound well alone and collectively form a breathtaking panorama of lyrical imagery and eclectic sound. Â I don't know where this work stands in today's polluted pop waters, but I fancy that back in the more bracing airs of 1981 it would have been celebrated as the major achievement it surely is."-Mike Alway, él Records
