Track Of The Day: The Drinking Club

🎼Track of the Day

⭐️Before I start my review, this is just a friendly message to bands and artists; Music submissions are now closed to Theresa’s Sound World for a little while. I’m flattered that so many of you have the confidence in me reviewing your music, but I have a massive backlog of reviews to work through, plus blogging elsewhere, a radio show, my own music, plus life in the offline world has got much busier! I will put a post out once things are a bit freer and hopefully a new music submissions video. Also, owing to time constraints, I’m only reviewing single tunes for now, so whenever I review at the moment, it will be in the ‘Track of the day’ format. If it’s a double A side/ ep or Album needing review, what I’m going to be doing is choosing my favourite track and reviewing that. Many thanks for your time and support of this blog-page; on with the review!

#TrackOfTheDay

Track: ‘Days slipping away’

From: ‘The Flight of the Carthorse’ EP

Band: The Drinking Club

Genre/s: Progressive Rock/ Neo-Progressive Rock/ Rock/ Acoustic/Baroque Rock

‘Days slipping away’ starts with a swell of Baroque Rock strings. The production is very similar to the warm and organic sound that was applied to strings in recordings of Alternative bands in the 1990s, for instance, R.E.M, Red House Painters, Scheer and Kristin Hersh all spring to mind. Here, that atmosphere is instantly created, but what really appeals, is how The Drinking Club don’t overdo things. It would be very tempting to play another couple of bars of the strings-dominated intro, but the band chose not to, delicately and quickly moving into a verse. Before we get to the vocals though, amongst the strings is a beautifully understated acoustic guitar, with a deep, natural sound, that perfectly complements the strings. There’s also approximations of percussion, providing a gently driving motion. Vocally, there’s a real sense of character, that has a Prog-Rock essence to it. Reminiscent, I think, of Peter Gabriel’s initial 1970s solo career, but probably more the vocalists of early 70s Prog/Jazz/Hippy band, Sweet Smoke. There’s just something the way that the voice weaves and rolls in and out and locks into particularly I think, the guitar. There’s distant shades of Justin Hayward’s vocal style and how his voice relates to the guitar in the song, ‘Forever Autumn’ from ‘The War of the Worlds’ album by Jeff Wayne. Chord progressions and voice nicely meander into a chorus, which has a sweet ambience to it and some charming backing vocals. I was instantly reminded of Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters’ dominated 70s output post- The Dark Side of the Moon. A similar sort of feel, I think. There’s a great beauty in the guitar and vocals which is juxtaposed with a very English sense of melancholia channelled through the lyrics. During a musical interlude, instead of a strings or guitar ‘solo’, there’s the surprise of a trumpet taking such a role. The trumpet itself seems played and produced to be both melancholic and pretty. There’s a depth to the playing, giving time I feel, for the listener, to appreciate the musical arrangement, which is spacious and unhurried. The music naturally weaves back into verse and chorus, which feel natural and again and don’t oversell themselves. As the chorus extends, the trumpet occasionally and gently stabs in. Gradually and very subtly, the instrumentation drops off, leaving only guitar and vocals, perhaps hinting of what an acoustic guitar and voice only version would sound like. ‘Days slipping away’ is my favourite tune on the ‘The Flight of the Carthorse’ EP, but I recommend you check out the other three tracks. The first link below gets you to ‘Days slipping away’, the second link to the entire ep. I’d also like to mention the artwork of this ep. As a lifelong fan of Comic Book and Pop Art, I love the illustration on this ep. It has that sketch-like and organic warmth of amongst others, Raymond Briggs, famous for both the children’s Christmas classic, ‘The Snowman’ and the not-so -for-children, Nuclear War tale, ‘When the wind blows’.

As with all the tunes I review on the Sound World, hope you enjoy listening to music by The Drinking Club⭐️

🎼Listen to ‘Days slipping away’ by The Drinking Club: https://thedrinkingclub.bandcamp.com/track/days-slipping-away

🎼Listen to ‘The Flight of the Carthorse’ EP by The Drinking Club in its entirety: https://thedrinkingclub.bandcamp.com/album/the-flight-of-the-carthorse-ep1-taking-off?fbclid=IwAR2LmFv9cCTQREHd4pk5W_ho-UlmPDrMgHQlT_QyZfwd2hIA0lQx4AoY_us

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