I have this dream that I’m on a stage
Singing singalong songs with my friends
And in this dream we’re floating in space
And we all wake up in the end
So what makes a classic album? I’ve listened to quite a few over my time on this music-adoring planet, & I think the answer is quite simple. A classic album is made up of classic tunes. Not album fillers, not decent tunes, but classics; both sides of the LP, when so much so as soon as the last song is play’d on side 2, you flip it straight over to side 1 again.
I mean, come on, Sgt. Peppers, every tune is bangin’. Graceland is a massive feast of classic tunes, while the Stone Roses first album is only let down by the weird backwards track. Then the Morcheeba Album… if only they could have maintained the quality of songs throughout the album after such an opening 5 or 6, etc., etc.. I mean, we could go on for hours & hours analysing the merits of all the classic albums, but we are here in my kitchen to take a look at Scottish sonic-sensationalists, Mickey 9s, brand new album, releas’d tomorrow, May 2nd, 2024
On asking the band’s frontman, St. Kool, what was the, well, essence of the album, he replied, “we’ve abandon’d our punk pretensions and produced an unapologetic collection of indie-funk pop tunes on themes of love, death, and mental health. Odes to old masters such as Eurythmics and Daft Punk, as well as current acts such as Hot Chip and Death Cab For Cutie. Personal and searching, but dreamy and fun, an album to dance and singalong to. You can cry if you want to.”
IMPRESSIVE SNAKE was recorded in the second half of last year in the two home studios of Scottish singer-songwriter, James Grant (Bicycle Thieves), & also the band’s guitarist, Anthony Paul. Song-writing credits have been split 4-ways equally between the band – no egos here -, & we’ve already heard two of the tracks in the form of ‘Impossibility’ (released 06/10/23) and ‘Moments Go’ (released 01/12/23). The latter was the last BBC Radio Scotland Single of The Week of 2023.
So – is it any good? Well let’s slap it on & have a little dance shall we?
IMPOSSIBILITY
Opening tunes announce the direction of the album. This is Mickey 9s, so of course the bouncy bass-driven beats are there, but now they are nestling in soundproof’d, undrafty studios we also get waves of super-clear vocals, both from Kool & his band harmonies. A poppy opener with a repetitive, dancefloor pleasing swathe of ending verses, including mythological references such as;
Feels like I’m on the brink of breaking down
Feels like I’m all tuned into monotone
Feels like I am Prometheus bound
Feels like I’m living on the coast of this ghost town
Well, you know, you’re not alone pal
I want to lie on Sisyphus’s stone
I want to lie in the myth of my old home
I want to lie in the depths of the burial ground
I want to lie in the mystery of sound
Well, you know, you’re not alone pal
Then you look at the album title, & especially the cover, with the Book of Genesis references, & yer like, ah this is gonna be a deep ride indeed.
MOMENT’S GO
Just as the album opens with the first single releas’d from it, the second track is the aforemention’d BBC single of the week. Moment’s Go is pure 80’s sexysynth. I mean if you were gonna suck the sap out of the tree that holds the decades up, the 80s branch, then distil it’s quintessence into a single song, you’d pretty much get Moments Go. The song itself is a semi-whimsical plea to an old lover for some kind of romantic restitution, but is perhaps a little sparse lyrically to have us truly engage with the message.
WHO DO YOU LOVE?
This is the first track on the album I’d say was a true classic. An immediate muscle-grabber, I’d imagine the dance floor would kick off to this one big time. All the parts work together in a solid block of funk here, including our first taste of female vocals, Imogen she’s call’d, a little too Annie Lennoxey perhaps, but still an absolutely excellent addition to the band’s uberconfidence – this is who Mickey 9s are, this is how we do it, & why ya not dancin’ yet?
So, a third of the way into a nine track album & I start thinking in tryptychs. Act One is over, the three segments of which seem to paint a picture of heroically attaining a high level of amorousness with a probably idealistically imagin’d lady. Eve, herself, perhaps. Let’s bang on Act Two to see if I’m right…
IF I GET LOST
I was right about the love thang, I think; check out the lyrics of this proper snappy popsplosion.
If I get lost, I get lost from you babe
I run around, run around, run around, run around
When I can’t find you
Minor altercations seem to escalate
Gotta hide the baby when we reach this state
Anger starts to grip me
Time to run away
Fight or flight my instinctual urge to stay
The second verse has an even better couplet, reading; ‘Talking, becomes tackling, becomes attacking / Defensive manoeuvres become entrenchments.’ Overall, an infectious earworm of a tune, dripping in melody.
WAVES OF LOVE
Track 5, the keystone, half-time oranges, the centre of gravity, etc.. Waves Of Love is dreamier, mellower affair, tho’ of course retaining the signature highway-driving, beat-focuss’d quintessence of Mickey 9s. And yes, we’re still in the love zone, whose ending is, lyrically, pure poetry
Somewhere underwater
We wander under waves of love
With secret hearts
Waves of love
Wash over us
Waves of love
Will surely drown us
So it is a love album, after all! I’m definitely getting those vibes now!
HEADLIGHTS
Or not! This track had no real love references, while musically it struck me with an astonishing immediacy of coolness. I liked it, I liked it a lot. Classic bass line, chord structure & melodies given new life, with some lovely lyrics transporting us to a late night drive thro’ Scotland, probably after a Mickey 9s gig. Classic tune number two, for me.
DAEDALUS
This album is definitely getting mellower. It’s also brings us back to the mythomemic opening, in which we have Daedelus, the man who built the Labyrinth & also the wax-melty wings which his son, Icarus, used in his attempt to fly to the sun. A third conscious-surfing driftalong in a row, in whose fabulously broken & riveting ending we are definitely entering the realms of Art Rock.
DREAM
So, to the penultimate song, which is almost as important as the finale, for it, of course, sets that up psychically. Happy to say Dream is the third classic tune of the album; more restrained musically – which is a nice for the album, texture is always important-, & flourishes along to its harmony-inducing & hypnotic main lyric which we should all end up singing in the bath at random some day.
DAVE PUNK
Impressive Snake’s lengthy finale ties up all the threads we’ve encounter’d so far; grasping for love, Art Rock & that ever-moving beat given flesh by the band’s ever-slick guitar work. This really means that the entire album is more concept album than an attempt to make a classic, tho’ like I said 3 of the tunes should become perrenial favourites.
We even get a wee bit of French among the lyrics – ‘sous les lumieres stroboscopiques,’ means ‘under the strobe lights’, which is the main theme of the song, as in;
I never knew I loved you
Til I saw you in the strobe lights
I thought I would never find you
Til I saw you in the strobe lights
So, well done lads, a proper album to listen to for 2024. I mean, that’s just me in my kitchen with a coffee listening to it’s riotous stream of beauties, tippy-tappying on my keyboard, like. I’m deffo up for seeing how the album effects me in the future, either on a drive, or having a cheeky rave in my living room, but wherever it is, I will be listening to it in its entirety, again, I am sure of that.
Damo
Mumble Music 