The Artistry

Everything is average nowadays – at least this is what the Kaiser Chiefs state on their last album. And promptly they did prove… well, exactly this by packing that piece of revealing news in an extremely ordinary and average song. The question how one can possibly sell hundreds of thousands of records and be blessed with amazing critics with such a self-fulfilling prophecy has something of a riddle. The answer to said questions probably isn’t going to be nicest for our era. But there is still hope left for a pardon by the high court of good taste, if – and only if – the accused are able to see the essence of the debut album of The Artistry and enjoy it. This album is the personal talent show of this young band that is neither interested in the independent ideology nor curries favour with mainstream, but truly believes in high-quality music for the masses. At the entrance of the Platonic Academy in Athens it was said that no one inexpert of geometry may enter. Consequently, the slogan on the door of the rehearsal room of The Artistry may be: “May no one enter these halls who is inexpert of the Beatles.”

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The debut album contains 12 attempts to live up to this sublime idea. Some things still sound immature and incomplete – as it is the general case with early works (see the German poets Goethe and Schiller or Lennon and McCartney) – but some of the songs simply are true pieces of art brought to life by the band and their lead singer Ian Christ. One of the best examples for this thesis is probably the self-ironic opener “We Don’t Happen Today” with its entertaining pendulum-like swings between verse and chorus and the astonishing bass line. The lyrics convince with their reference to Friedrich Nietzsche and the solo part with its guitar theme inspired by the virtuoso Mauro Giuliani (1781-1829; polonaise from the Gran Concerto op70 for guitar in F major). Another example would be “Chasing Away The Sorrow”, a laid-back and pleasing mid-tempo song whose highlight may be the end part in two voices that is followed by a coda. The song can also be understood as an answer to the rock tradition of taking everything too bloody serious as it has been celebrated by Kurt Cobain and Billy Corgan. The chorus is presented in an almost seducing way: “When ev’rything comes down on you / Just close your eyes and think of all the things you’ve been through / And you’ll start to be amused”. Cobain surely wouldn’t be amused, but - luckily- he is dead.

A stroke of luck is “The Other Land” – a song that is simply made for the radio and predestined as a single. It transmits melancholy without the slightest sign of cramping or whining, just like others of the band’s songs. A hundred sighs pile up to a storm, but it’s alright – it is the material for the next song. In this case, the next one is a song that made René Mühlenberger, singer of Velojet, say “Travis have to wrap up warm”. However, the lyrics don’t seem to be influenced too much by Scotland, but rather by reading Aldous Huxley and Timothy Leary. “Ian’s 115th Dream” takes up a new tone. It is a catchy dance rock song with a tearing pace that does not need the nerve-racking pushiness Franz Ferdinand are known for. Not only does the title of the song remind of Bob Dylan, but also the lyrics show a strong relation to him and his cryptic and surreal poetry, as well as the eclectic reference to world literature conjure up a memory of Dylan thanks to expressions such as “hyperborean wind” and “don’t play fiesco ‘cause he went down the drain”. The only valid excuse for those who, after listening to this song, do not make their way from the dance floor to the library to study Schiller’s “Fiesco” or Nietzsche’s “Anti-Christ” may be that they want to listen to the rest of the album first.
One of the highlights of this LP is “Over The Hill (Where Blue Flowers Grow)”, a melodic pocket symphony with harmonium, mellotron and a choir. The song accomplishes what the German poet Joseph Eichendorff only dared dreaming of. But this charming ode to romantic not only conjures up a fantastic idyll full of aesthetic harmony where no kiss leaves a bad taste, where no name misses the named and where nothing is prosaic but everything poetic. It rather is as well aware of the ironic distance towards this actually only artificial naiveté and casts a glance behind the beautiful scenery where the fearsome is hiding and no harmony of things can be found. It is the real and right life that is captured within the wrong one and that has not forgotten that it is only a blooming island in a turbulent ocean. And this is the case for the whole album. If the band now manages to play one or two songs live, their way up to the Olympus of sophisticated pop music is sure.
Cass Avilyn, January 2008