Awww I feel bad now! Iāll try and find some time for LaLa Land and Welshpool Frillies this week or next, fingers crossed!
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So Nowhere to Go But Up, like the cover art , like the first two songs alot. Then the rest flows ok, it sounds like an album with a concept / sound just none of those songs are really that memorable for me.
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No rush! Iāll be keeping it open for ages anyway, and the time for the 90s throwback EP section etc
Mostly hope you like WF cos I thought it was great
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fwiw I got caught up in the hype and listened to āThe Race is On, The King is Deadā. good song! not enough to tempt me back to the listening club full-time thoughā¦
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The new album was out just on Friday, you can come in for that! (Launching tomorrow)
Then just one more drop which is all overlooked 90s EP goodness ā¦ tempting eh?
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Fine, but Iāll feel like that guy who ran half the 1904 Olympic marathon then hitched a ride in a car to just before the finish line 
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Fucked my phone and also in full holiday mode so not on top of my schedule. But gonna launch this so people have time to listen and Iāll come back in when I can!
Havent tried this at all yet outside of the first single so will be very keen to get a first live listen for the club once I can
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ah, so close to having this coincide with the actual release date!
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Curse that Christmas break
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This is fine. Fictional Environment Dream is a really good song and the vocals donāt bother me as much as they did on the first couple listens. Serene King is a stupid hook. Only one boring song.
This one seems to have some of Bobās worst vocal performances in recent memory and some of his best imo!
Had this going around in my head all weekend, serious earworm!
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Strut of Kings!
Well here we are at the end of the official albums portion of the GBV listening club. Thanks @jaguarpirate for running this all. Iāve loved it. Strut of Kings has only been out for a couple of weeks but itās a good one to end with I think. Itās a real fusion of (British-leaning) 60s/70s psych n prog, but delivered in a concise way and with hooks a plenty too.
Show Me The Castle has these cool bent-outta-shape chords going on and some suitably muddy vox that really suit older-Bob before it moves into some tighter rockiness. Itās a proggy multi-piece opener but it kind of works like a Mesh Gear Fox for the new line-up. I dig. Dear Onion is a nice concise thing by comparison. Kinda like a heavy Beatles thing. Again, the production has a good organic warmth which suits it I think. This Will Go On changes things up again. Itās light and acoustic, and very lovely. This is a cracking opening run of tunes to be honest!
Fictional Environment Dream ā one of the promo tracks for the record ā is a decent tune, but I do think the nakedness of the vocals isnāt doing Bob any favours here. It absolutely does not seem like a simple tune to sing either. I kind of wish one of the other band members could take the lead vox on it. I reckon Kevin would do it justice a la Your Cricket Is Rather Unique. Olympus Cock In Radiana changes up the vibe again. (This record doesnāt sit still!) Reminds me of Genesis or Be Bop Deluxe ā very British 70s prog/psych. Itās short though, so works as a brief interlude, without getting tedious.
Leaving Umbrella (OBLIGATORY BOB SONG TITLE KLAXON) has a cool sound. Feel like the riff was on Crystal Nunās Cathedral, but this is all very slowed down and atmospheric. Really works. Great vox and production. Caveman Running Naked is one of those ROCK tunes you could imagine on Sweating The Plague or Zeppelin Over China. Not my favourite shade of GBV, but it doesnāt outstay its welcome. Timing Voice is a bit run-of-the-mill. Backwards guitar solo though! Which conjures up the Beatles once more. And then the organ-tinged outro calls back to the British progginess again.
Bit Of A Crunch is a real gem. Fantastic vocal delivery from Bob. Proof that in certain keys he can still really belt it out. Great lyrics too perfectly paired with the instrumentation that moves from sparse, to full-band, to some really cool delayed drum beats over the initial riff, and then strings. Mega! Serene King is fantastic too. A really solid hooky hit with a fantastic chorus that is fun to sing while going around your mundane business. Should be in rotation on radio. Love it! Bicycle Garden canāt really match up to those two. Itās not bad, but arguably a bit of a weak closer to an album thatās as strong as this ā the brass in the outro is cool though.
Overall, Strut of Kings is a good balance of prog ānā pop. I enjoy that every track is a bit of a curveball, but it flows really nicely. And the fact it has, probably, two of the strongest tunes Bob has penned in over a year (a long time in GBVworld!) make for a good value rec.
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Bonus Serene King
Quite liked Strut of Kings on first listen actually, for the most part. As @myyada said, the opening run is goodā¦Show Me the Castle could even have done with a bigger and longer finish Iād say though. Cool guitar sounds. Didnāt much like the cavemen song or the last track, Bicycle Garden, both too far into some kind of pub rock thing that Iām not incapable of appreciating but didnāt wanna hear on this. Had enough of GBV āstompsā. Serene King has a great chorus, could be a modern classic of theirs if it werenāt for the verse, which I find quite annoying.
Had bits of this, Welshpool Frillies, and Nowhere To Go But Up (and the weird and underrated Pollard solo album Fiction Man for some reason) bouncing around my head in strange combinations all weekend thoughā¦ thereās definitely still something there
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Having finally got Apple Music working with my ancient Chromecast again, Iām finally listening to Welshpool Frillies.
Iād basically forgotten this album existed and remembered nothing of listening to it when it came out, so I expected it to be as forgettable as La La Land. But itās actually started quite good! Just has much better songs really, the first few are pretty solid.
My eyes lit up when I heard the lo-fi acoustic guitar on Chain Dance. How Iāve missed that sound! And itās back on Mother Mirth! These could be on Motivational Jumpsuit or even something much earlier.
Animal Concentrate is a bit rubbish and my attention starts to wane for a bit around here but some decent bits still. Donāt Blow Your Dream Job started a bit dull but got good later on. Rust Belt Boogie is much better than the title. After a couple of albums with fewer tracks, 15 maybe feels like a touch too many now, could happily lose one or two. But not a bad effort.
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Soooo at long last, here are my quickfire reviews of La La Land and Welshpool Frillies:
La La Land - a contender for the most frustrating GBV album to date? The first few songs on this are absolutely superb, and perfectly showcase what the current lineup can achieve when everything clicks together. But then along comes that mid-album proggy/experimental six minute attempt at an epic which, unfortunately, just seems to suck the life and momentum out of the remainder of the album.
I do, at least, really like Pockets which everybody else on here seemed to be lukewarm about?
Scoring this one is tricky. Giving it a 6 seems a bit mean-spirited bearing in mind the quality of that opening salvo of songs, but I think it most accurately reflects the lop-sided nature of the full album. I wish I could give halves, because this would probably get a 6.5 in that case.
Welshpool Frillies - ah, now this is more like it! Love pretty much everything about this album, the songwriting is great (weāre back to lots of tasty 2 minute nuggets), Bob sounds fantastic (big fan of his tendency to double-track his vocals now, it gives them much more punch and mostly hides the slight throaty-ness which had crept in as heās gotten a bit older), and I love the crunchy, spontaneous live sound of the recordings. There are even a couple of old-school lo-fi tunes on here, just to vary things up nicely! This album is exactly what I want from the current lineup 
It feels like Iām cheating to name one of the singles as my fave from the album, but I just love Seedling to bits, a real grower and I really appreciate the positive vibes of the lyrics in light of all the grim news coming out of America recently. I really love the jangly goodness of Cruisersā Cross as well, but to be honest most of the tracklist are standouts to these ears.
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PS I gave Welshpool Frillies a cheeky 9 in the end. Iād usually give it an 8, but a) I was really pleasantly surprised at how great most of it was, and b) I reckoned the existing listening club rating needed bumping up a notch or two!
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I gave La La Land a 5 and Welshpool Frillies a 7
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