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Captain - This Is Hazelville
Prior to release this album was hailed by Zane Lowe on his Radio One show as his ‘Album of The Week’. Further plaudits were received as other Radio One DJ’s, most notably Steve Lamacq championed their first two singles ‘Broke’ and ‘Glorious’. Upon release ‘This is Hazeville’ charted at number 23 and the singles at number 34 and 30 respectively.
Not too bad for debut releases; especially when their material is unlike pretty much everything else that is considered mainstream at the moment; and it would suggest that the acclamation they have received is fully justified.
On first listen you could be forgiven for thinking that you had heard this album before. Indeed on second and third listen you’ll probably realise that you actually kind of have. I’m sure everyone will draw their own comparisons, but for me a large portion of the album sounds like any number of pop songs that were released between 1980 and circa 1990 that featured a male/female duo lead vocal. Of course it is easy to find comparisons with that genre since essentially that’s exactly what Captain are; an indie-pop band that has a male/female duo lead vocal; but that is not the only similarity.
The entire arrangement of the album feels as though it could have been test tube created using material from that period. Listen to this album and think of The Human League and Heaven 17, then particularly Deacon Blue’s Real Gone Kid and Twist & Shout or Beautiful South’s early hit records You Keep It All In and A Little Time, with Briana Corrigan providing the female lead, even REM’s Shiny Happy people with Katie Pierson of the B52’s and you’ll probably see what I mean.
So, is this album just a complete rip off and are Captain just hoping that everyone who was around to listen to music at that time either gone deaf or developed senile dementia? I doubt both. The familiarity of the album could be largely attributed to legendary producer Trevor Horn. Back in the day, Horn can be credited with being the driving force behind Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s hit records ‘Relax’, ‘Two Tribes’ and ‘The Power of Love’. In his spare time he even managed to produce material by ABC, Pet Shop Boys, Spandau Ballet, Simple Minds, Marc Almond and Rod Stewart among an endless list of other bands and artists you most definitely will have heard of, including the co-production of Band Aid (with Midge Ure).
He has of course produced a whole host of more contemporary artists, but with this track record (and albeit irrefutable pedigree) it is perhaps unsurprising that ‘This is Hazelville’ has a ring of 80’s through early 90’s pop. But it would be naïve to conclude the album is just that, it is much more than just Deacon Blue artificially inseminated by Heaven 17, ‘This is Hazelville’ is a sweet sounding cocktail of both past and present pop music. So what if it sounds a little too familiar, credit to Captain for making an album that has taken all the best attributes of 80’s music, chewed them over and regurgitated them back up with a thorough sprinkling of fresh and modern diversity.
The album kicks off with title track ‘Hazelville’, it’s twinkling piano intro (almost 2 minutes of it) being broken by a powerful wave of energetic guitars. The elegant combination of harmonies from lead singers Rik Flynn and Clare Szembek are an enduring feature of this song and for that matter the majority of the album and more often than not they’ve got it spot on. Following up are their singles to date ‘Glorious’ and ‘Broke’, the former being as uplifting a pop record as you are likely to here this year.
- Captain
- This Is Hazelville (2006)
- Category: Album
- Label: EMI
- Reviewed by: Matty
- Published on: 08 Oct 2006
- Comments: 0
- Beat Surrender Rating:
Weblinks
Add to favouritesEast, West, North, South is next, a foot tapping head nodder, with a drum beat similar to that of The Verve’s Bitter Sweet Symphony, but a much more melodic happier song that continues the summery theme so evident on the first half of the album. New single Frontline follows (actually previously released as a limited edition debut), and hopefully should do well on the back of its predecessors success, as it is of equal quality.
The rest of the album may initially pass you by the first few times you hear it as it appears to struggle to live up to the standard set by the opening few tracks. Persevere with it though because unlike many other albums where the only real credible songs are heaped at the beginning and the rest are just fillers, the remainder of the tracks do have hidden depth and certainly grow on you quickly, particularly stand out tracks ‘Western High’ and closer ‘Acidie’
I once read The Lightning Seeds album Jollification described as ‘a mine of 3 minute musical nuggets’, I’ve always loved that descriptive analogy and I’ve always loved that album. ‘This is Hazelville’ is of the same ilk, an album that you hammer for the first 2 weeks, then put away in your collection to rest before you periodically bring it out for an airing, again and again, time after time, realising it still hasn’t lost it’s initial appeal.
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