While I don’t do
these anymore and the cover should tell you more than any review ever could, I
feel this album demands a decent write-up. Because nobody else would give a damn:
No Song, No Spell, No Madrigal is the
sort of album that hits #128 on French charts, stays there for two weeks, then
disappears from the face of Earth forever.
Until some abstract
guy from 2043 starts trawling through 2015 albums that fame forgot and
discovers this record and scratches his head and looks at the sky and asks how
the fuck.
Gentle bass guitar
opens the melody of the title track, and we are off. The taste here is
impeccable. Peter Milton Walsh is the kind of guy who sings in whimsical,
slightly nasal voice (acquired taste, but you’d be a fool not to acquire it)
and comes up with bittersweet lines like ‘flowers of regret so suddenly in
bloom’. The mood is hopelessly nostalgic, the lyrics are desperately sorrowful
and these gorgeous, smooth melodies will take some time dragging out of the snow.
The only moment that jumps at you comes during “September Skies”: that jangly,
melodious chant which offers some hope (until you realise what September sky
actually looks like). Otherwise, it’s dark orchestration, moody piano notes,
sad guitar lines. You will need to give it some time – in the end, I promise,
it will grow deep into you.
Nostalgia. That’s the
sound of this album. That’s the look of it. I mean, the cover is exactly like
Munich I saw at the end of January. And end of January seems a million years
away.
