We are at the end of the year, a time when all those self-important people you have never heard of seem to be making their albums of the year lists, like music can be ranked and compared as if it were football statistics or the sweetness of the wine. But it has made me think, in a general way, about the albums and bands who have left an impression on me in the last year. Lusitanian Ghosts is undoubtedly such a band and, if I were the type of person that went in for lists, I would:
1. Place Lusitanian Ghosts III very high up in my albums of the year.
2. Suggest that everyone should be made, by law, to listen to The Long Train
3. Petition the organisers of the Beautiful Days festival to have them on the bill.
Thankfully, lists are not my thing. But this album certainly is.
Anyone who kicks off with a song that reminds me of The Waterboys and can get the phrase “terminal monogamy” in a song, is a band that we need right now, especially when most songs seem to be about being young, wild and cool, unfaithful, distrustful, angsty and angry and do so over a set of off-the-shelf beats and well-worn guitar lines. “The Long Train” is like a breath of fresh air in that regard.
There are songs that run on joyous lilts, such as “September”‘s dancing mandolin (though it is just as likely to be some obscure, medieval Iberian stringy thing), licks and groove-some bass melodies. There are songs, such as the previous single “Got Enough”, that are spacious and brooding, sparse and beautiful. And there are songs such as “Black Wine, White Coffee” which sound like a heavy metal band who have got locked in backstage at Cropredy Festival and have whiled away the time making music with Fairport Convention’s kit.
No, I don’t go in for albums of the year, but if I did…
Lusitanian Ghosts digital order
