Decoration – Put Me Back On My Bike
Kay’s Catalogue, a song on this album, opens with the line “Don’t get carried away, you bumped into an old face today”. It turns out that this is very apt and more than that, apposite. I like old friends. I like the familiarity and I like the way they rarely change and the way they wrap you in a warm blanket of security when you meet them. Other people don’t like this, chasing change for changes sake and the next new thing. Personally I don’t give a monkey’s so long as the experience is a quality one and everyone is happy; and that is exactly how I feel about the latest offering from Decoration; Put Me Back On My Bike.
All the things that I like about Decoration are in this album: the distinctive guitar sound, the vocal that gets angry but never quite breaks, and lyrics that threaten to be too complex for Stuart Murray to get his gnashers around, but with him always getting there in the end. They are renowned for packing many a good line in to a tune and One-Offs, the opening track, hits you with a hoard of these from the start. Comparing some woman sprawling over some bloke to “a wet blouse on a clothes horse” is vintage Decoration and each song needs a few airings to take it all in.
I don’t know if it is by design but the first three songs are the strongest, at least in my opinion. One-Offs and silent Kisses For Quiet Goodbyes are what you would expect, but Paul Is Dead Nice is almost the ghost of a concept album that never was, starting off predictably (“Like a skilled mortician he can fix a grin that lasts all week”) then breaking down into muttered conversations and curses, false endings, references to Hannibal crossing the Alps and then the faded finish. It’s not that the subsequent seven tunes are bad in any way; it’s just that the opening three set the tone, and indeed the standard, for the album.
It seems an age since Decoration were a favourite of John Peel and an age since their last album See You After The War, an album that was altogether darker and more introspective than this. Having said that a few of these tunes would sit well on that previous album, but that makes it sound as if nothing has changed. Although not of My Bloody Valentine proportions, the time it took to produce this record obviously gave the band the opportunity to do a lot with the production and feel of the songs. They threw at least part of the kitchen sink at a couple of them.
One of the problems with old friends is that if you’re not careful we can end up taking them for granted and in the cottage industry that represents much of Indie Music in 2014 bands are faced with a saturation point. There are lots of things to divert music lovers attention from the likes of the two Steve(n)s, Sam and Stuart. Maybe it has always been the case. The frustrating thing about this album is the fact that it took so long to appear and although many people I know love this band, substantial activity is what is needed to get these tunes out there where they deserve to be heard; if that’s what the band want of course. I know it’s what I want!
Put Me Back On My Bike is released by 13 b sides and is available from the usual places, but in particular their Bandcamp . A good selection of Decoration tunes, including a few from this album can be streamed also from Soundcloud.
Review: Ian Gelling
Photograph: Decoration