“We are in Exile/You
know/We were Akin/Our lies you know.” The opening line from the aural dream
soundscape of In Exile dealing with
in my opinion, being isolated and locked away from the world without help and
being part of as Mark Twain puts it, The Damned Human Race. That and the band’s
new studio album which is a follow up to their 10th album, Magnolia entitled Your Wilderness. Released this year on the Kscope label, it is one
of the band’s aural textures and moody/darker atmosphere’s that Soord himself
brings to life.
Since their formation back in 1999, The Pineapple Thief have
always redefined their sound. Now I’m not a gigantic fan of the band’s music,
but I have a huge amount of respect of what they have accomplished along with
Bruce Soord’s songwriting and mixing. Soord is also a very busy man when it
comes to 5.1 mixes. He’s done work on the 5.1 sound with bands and artists such
as; Opeth, TesseracT, Tim Bowness, Katatonia, and Riverside.
Alongside Bruce Soord, Bassist John Sykes, and Keyboardist Steve
Kitch, they brought along some help including Caravan’s Geoffrey Richardson of
Caravan to help out on the string section, Gavin Harrison (Porcupine Tree, King
Crimson) on Drums who recorded his sound and engineered at his own studio and
Geoffrey himself did the recording of the string quartet at his own studio in
Canterbury. There’s also Darran Charles of Godsticks on Guitar and Supertramp’s
John Helliwell on Clarinet.
The four highlights on the album including the amazing
artwork done by Carl Glover’s photos which is a trip back in time in the 1960s
of the conceptual brainstorm of the album, it’s like looking at a pair of old
shoes you haven’t wore for a long time and the photos adds the ideas and up to
you as a listener to give your own ideas of what’s happening. And Soord is
keeping his lips firmly closed about this.
No Man’s Land is a
touching composition with an acoustical section. The lyrical themes on the loss
of innocence and knowing if you’re happy in the empty scenario for the sun to
return. Gavin is in free-form as he is in full control of the drum kit while
the harmonizing background vocals featuring an intense chugging section of the electric
guitar, gives forth the booming Bass sounds before the last minute of the song
section, goes heavy.
With throttling intense guitar riffs on Tear You Up, it has the switch genre. From Acoustic to Alternative
Rock as the distant shores of the voices calling out for someone, but no one is
there while Take Your Shot feature
riff-melodies. With a reverb/delay effect intro it has a louder rhythm groove
as Soord’s songwriting takes up a whole new level with a wah-wah improvisation.
The lyrics almost remind me of a competition game of Chess
to see who will in the final round or about the person’s detail of moving
toward a new beginning and seeing where their future lies ahead for them in the
long and winding road. Fend For Yourself is
Bruce channeling the mind of Steven Wilson.
There’s a Jazz atmosphere on the composition. With a
beautiful piano and into the acoustic rhythm as Gavin goes into the jazz
techniques of his kit before John Helliwell’s driving clarinet section gives
forth the styles of both John Coltrane and Miles Davis as he takes flight
throughout his improvisation.
As I said this before earlier, I’m not a big Pineapple Thief
fan, but listening to the entire album about three times now, it’s not bad. Is
it a great album? No, but it is an interesting and beautiful texture that Soord
has brought to the kitchen table. Your Wilderness is
a fascinating and emotional album I’ve listened to and I might check and see
what Bruce himself will come up with next.
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