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Following 2009's cricket pop concept album The Duckworth Lewis Method and in between scoring a film and penning a musical, Neil Hannon is revealed to be a happy man on Bang Goes The Knighthood, The Divine Comedy's 10th album and first for four years.
His state of positivity is clear from the closing track, I Like, a light affair chronicling a very satisfied home
life, and the idyllic Belle & Sebastian-esque Cathy Davey duet Island Life, which paints a lovely picture of a blossoming romance.
Across its 12 tracks Bang Goes The Knighthood is a jaunt, with lots of typically wry
Divine Comedy jokes, chief amongst them The Complete Banker, which will have
us all cheering unless we happen to work in the financial services
industry. And then there is the sublimely silly Can You Stand Upon
One Leg, featuring the famous Hannon voice holding a (falsetto) note
for 28.9 seconds...
But on closer listening, the bite of so many Divine Comedy songs is
still there underneath. The title track, in which the anti-hero
sneaks in to the underground lair of a dominatrix for a good whipping,
risking his reputation, his marriage (and the potential knighthood, of
course), contains the heartbreaking line "You make me feel something,
and feeling something beats feeling nothing at all". The haunting
waltz-time tune, with slightly incongruous accordion but lovely
twinkly piano / harpsichord is vintage Hannon, a character study to rival A Lady Of A Certain Age, from 2006's Victory For The Comic Muse.
Neapolitan Girl, inspired by Norman Lewis' Naples '44 wartime diaries, is
another breezy number with a very dark heart: the girl in question is
a prostitute plying her trade in the cemetery.
Despite such delvings into darkened corners, the overall the feeling is upbeat. The first single
At The Indie Disco, with its references to everybody from Morrissey to the Wannadies,
harks back to more innocent
pleasures and leads in to Have You Ever Been In Love, another bouncy
song with a Palm Court backing.
The old sly humour is back too with Assume The Perpendicular,
giving a fond poke to the middle classes at play, and The Lost Art Of
Conversation is familiar territory bemoaning - well, the title says it all.
The two stand out tracks are opener Down In
The Street Below, a lovely bittersweet ballad that ably demonstrates
Hannon's continued ability when it comes to writing a lovely, lovely songs, and When A Man Cries,
which begins with very gentle piano and dulcet music-box tinklings and becomes a
real emotional tear-jerker, building in intensity and adding subtle
orchestration to great effect. It's the sort of song that perfectly
showcases Hannon's lovely, evocative voice.
It's always good to have a new Divine Comedy album. Bang Goes The
Knighthood doesn't quite pack the punch of the old days, but there's still
plenty here to enjoy. And if it doesn't attract a whole new audience,
die-hard fans will be pleased the quirky genius is having a good
time. "I like the way you make me laugh / I like your brain, both
left and right half / I like the songs you sing when you're bathing /
I like the dog, when he's behaving..." If that isn't a happy man, we don't know what is.
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