- Label: 'Gare Du Nord Records'
- Genre: 'Alt/Country'
- Release Date: '4.10.24.'- Catalogue No: 'GDNCD079'
Our Rating:
Another Time is the debut album by Electric Hero who are the solo project of busy London musician and producer Chris Clarke who I first saw playing with Horse Latitudes at The Barfly way back when. Since then, he has played in among others The Rockingbirds, Danny & The Champions Of The World, Foghorn Leghorn, Pete Astor & The Holy Road.
He recorded the album at his Reservoir Studios with help from among others Jamie Alex Pope, Elliot Clarke, Steve Cox, Wilson N Scott, Celina Liesgang, Eamonn Flynn, Adam Kirk and Steve Huddleston.
The album opens with Yesterday's Tomorrows in a welter of synths and jangly guitars, this veers between being modern synth pop and old-fashioned jangle pop, while lyrically wanting to go back to the old visions for how today was going to be, rather than the reality of what we now have, Chris Clarke reflects on how life has turned out.
All That Remains are some fine songs and a riff that just needed using on a song like this, fingers slide up the fret board making odd noises, you look round for someone to blame for how things turned out.
One Last Time takes a dirty bassline and steady pub rock riff, for Chris to wonder what could make you want One Last Time, to do all the things you hadn't previously bothered with, the organ makes you sit up and listen.
Brother O Brother is stripped back almost gospel indie, so what do you say and how will it stop all the numbness, is it too late to make things right or will our lives always be this train crash.
On The Outside Looking In has a whimsical indie pop feel to another tale from the harsher side of life, he's stuck outside looking in at everything that's gone wrong.
Who Decides? A perennial question, how can you make a song sound more like The Rockingbirds, well play that lap steel just so, get those harmonies spot on, this feels instantly familiar yet fresh.
Good Times is a drive time country rocker for speeding down the road towards the next Good Time, no matter how unlikely that might currently seem, since everything went wrong.
If I Had opens with the sort of guitar line that grabs at you to listen, Chris searches for the right words to get over his message, the music more than does the talking for him, rather than losing the plot and smashing everything to pieces, just sit back and listen to what that guitar does.
The Bigger Man is sage advice for those times when you just have to fight back, let whoever it is know you won't put up with it, with a cool laid-back backing this is emphatic in a very gently inspiring way.
Let's Blow The Whole Thing Up like your either back with Pete Astor or have joined forces with Graham Parker and are ready to tear the playhouse down and start again, no one's going to stop you doing what it is you need too.
The album closes with The Long Way Round a slow burning country tune for never bothering with a direct route to the goals you want to achieve, which is why it's taken this long for a Chris Clarke solo project, this has a lush laid-back feel and enough odd noises to keep you listening to what's going on.
Find out more at https://electrichero1.bandcamp.com/album/another-time???https://www.facebook.com/reservoirstudios
