Bôa

"Elephant", to my mind, always gave me the feeling of a travel agent's advert. In part because of the lyrics:

"I'm going to go there, I'm going to travel, I'm going to see my way through and, you can follow […]"

That sounds a little like criticism, but I need you to understand that this is the shite music used in travel adverts in the early 2000's. I suppose these days it would be some sort of ukulele jingle.

The vocals on Elephant are of a similar category to Duvet, that I think really works. A sort of 'searching' sound that stretches, and pulls, and lands somewhere comfortable. The strings and keyboards provide fantastic support without overplaying their hand - a tragedy given Paul Turrell (keyboard, string arr.) passed away in 2017.

"One Day" is the only song not sang by Jasmine Rogers, and is instead sung by Steve Rodgers. It feels short, and I remember not liking it when I was younger. It is inexplicably tied to my memories of installing Fedora 8 - the one that came with the Nokogiri metacity theme. In those memories, I hit skip.

These days, I don't skip it. I sometimes think it would have been nice to have another track sung by Steve on the album instead of the acoustic cover of "Duvet" (which listening to the recently released LP, still has muddy bass).

While I like the whole album, "Little Miss" is the most solid in terms of lyrics. Presented in the second person, pushing a power dynamic that flips in the last chorus. The guitars lead, always a step ahead of the vocals - switching between grungy and light as the narrative unfolds.

"Little Miss" has a jazzy bit at the end that it slides into so casually, it feels like the song is about to bleed into the next track. Sadly it doesn't, but it's tremendously cool to imagine where it could go (or more specifically, where Ben Henderson (saxophone) could take it).

For all I have maybe the least to say about "Little Miss", I think I'd say it's my favourite of the track-list.

I recall reading a review (also many years ago) that called out the lyrics on a number of the tracks for being overly-written. And they absolutely are.

"Rain", as an example, has the feeling of the lyrics being polished to a lead-like lustre. "Suicide is rain in pain" is too much, no matter how well Jasmine Rodgers can sing it (and to some extent the presentation of the lyrics doesn't help). In contrast, "Scoring" at least plays around with "score" as a homograph.

"Drinking" is well written, for all acoholism isn't exactly a novel subject. But the typicality of it makes it easier to judge the lyrics - and "and you say the drinking, is better than a woman, and you say the thinking, takes too much time" has managed to remain in my head for over two decades.

The album's title track is pretty deserving of it. The string arrangement is again brought out by (I think) Paul Turrell, and it does another fantastic job of being selectively applied with care and consideration.

I could do without Jasmine Roger's "la-la's". She's very good at them - and I'll get to that in the next section, but it feels like unnecessary ornamentation when the instruments could be given a chance to show what they've picked up in the years since the last album.

As an example, see the next two tracks "Wasted" and "Believe Me" - both with melodic flourishes on the guitar away from the forefront. Though, altogether, I'm not more font of those than "Get There".

"Daylight" is difficult to make out on a first listen - the lyrics are regularly overlaid with other lyrics. "You in my memories (You must be on your guard)" is one example.

Jasmine Rogers is playing to her strengths with songs like this. If you listened to Twilight, you know she can play with a line seemingly effortlessly - and harmonising with herself is an effective way to demonstrate that.

I haven't spoke much (at all) about the drums on these albums. But I think I'd be doing a disservice to Lee Sullivan to not praise him for how well the drums come across in these albums. Obviously there's a tendency to focus on the vocalists as the element that ties things together, but I don't think any of this would work well without his good sense tying things together.

"America" has Jasmine Rogers take something of a back seat. Of course, she's still there, but the track gives a lot of space and time to the instrumentation so they can polish their parts. I read a review years ago that said it was one of the tracks that could have been dropped - but I disagree.

Aside from it being one of the few times the piano takes a leading role (albeit for a short period), I can't think of another track where the percussion shapes the entire track. My impression, even now, is that of a drum circle (which is perhaps where the title is born).

Like "One Day", hearing it takes me back to the days of fglrx, ndiswrapper, and manually tweaking xorg.conf.

Presumably, but not definitively, "Passport" is a song for someone. It's a sweet song, and lyrics like "Asleep in the bath, You watched the New Year passing by" are some of the best.

Just as I can't help but feel "Elephant" is a "travel" song - for me, the chorus of "Passport" viscerally recontextualises the destination. While a relationship between the two songs is probably not intentional (I have never sought out who C.W.B could be, and I don't intend to look) - this association makes Passport my favourite of "Get There".