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reviewed for FasterLouder

Midlake caught a lot of people by surprise and acquired new fans with their 2006 album The Trials Of Van Occupanther, a record that in part captured the freewheeling spirit of the 70s and west coast America. Lurking beneath the big breezy melodies was a more fragile and folk based sound that hinted at where the band’s roots lay. Not surprisingly it is that undercurrent that has risen to the surface with their latest release The Courage Of Others.

The immediate and overarching theme of this record is nature and man’s interactions and emotional parallels with it. Main man Tim Smith has taken his pagan approach right through the music and lyric writing, the cover photo and the layout of the liner notes. The problem with such a singular focus is that if you don’t get it right you have no other strengths of the album’s content to fall back on.

For half of The Courage Of Others Smith and Midlake do get it right. The opener Acts Of Man sets the pastoral scene with that familiar and unique voice intoning and droning across the gentle acoustic song. Smith is straight into the man vs wild subject matter and you can envisage rolling English fields and forests. This imagery continues throughout the album, encouraged by the flutes, recorders and autoharps that are synonymous with the folk music of the band’s homeland.

Unfortunately that first confident step falters with the next trio of songs. Small Mountain drifts aimlessly, weaving a path that never really finds a destination or any interesting encounters along the way. Core Of Nature begins like a lost Metallica riff a la Nothing Else Matters before also floating off into the ether.

Luckily a mid album resurrection occurs, starting with Fortune. It is a ray of light against the preceding moroseness with its fresh and confident arrangement. Those harmonies that enthralled so many on their previous album are warm and radiant with Smith singing richly like Tim Buckley and at times Cat Stevens.

Rulers, Ruling All Things carries on the right vibe with a very MASH-like opening melody before the music slowly grows a backbone with the bass pushing things along and Smith’s wonderful descending chorus. Bring Down is a close cousin to the aching breakdown in Radiohead’s Paranoid Android and is the most emotionally resonant moment alongside the title track. The Courage Of Others is about doubts and fears and contains the album’s most simple and direct lyrics which hang weightily in the air before the music envelopes Smith’s confessions and descends into a beautiful psych jam that should have been allowed to grow and stretch out.

Midlake have delivered a curious album that on the first few listens is an underwhelming affair. Persevere though and some gentle gems will start to push through the cracks. It is a stately, graceful and defiantly English record that inevitably suffers without the swelling, bruised hooks of The Trials Of Van Occupanther. To have replicated those moments would have seen them repeating themselves, instead they have explored their more intricate and rustic side with both intriguing and mixed results.