- Label: 'Last Night From Glasgow'
- Genre: 'Pop'
- Release Date: '3.10.25.'
Our Rating:
This is the 25th Anniversary re-issue of Pandemonia by The Bathers fully re-mastered by Paul McGeechan and repackaged as a double album released on Vinyl for the first time. Allowing Chris Thompson's rich vocals space to bewitch another generation, The Bathers also feature Catherine Leroy, Mario Caribe, Neil Cameron, Callum McNair, Hazel Morrison, Robert Henderson, Barry Overstreet, Iain White, Isobel Campbell and Richard Colburn.
The album opens with subtle acoustic guitar flourishes and hummed vocals on Twenty-Two the main deep husky vocals lusting after your blue eyes, beauty of hazy recollections of lust and desire for the Twenty-Two year old woman who will be heralded by trumpets she re-arranges your world while you fall deeply in love with her.
The Belle Sisters is a plea for the belief that love will save us all, sounding like a Chet Baker anthem, in praise of everything the Belle sisters do for you, the slow tale unfurls majestically.
Tequila Mockingbird is slow hushed reverence, an almost not there tune, memories of the drink and what happened after, slow pained vocal harmonies, guitars unfurl and wobble like the flutters of your heart.
Trocadero Girls is a song hoping to be allowed to hang out with those girls, getting into all sorts of scrapes, alongside trying to seduce them, the plaintive love and lust among the hushed acoustic guitars and soft brushed drums trying to give you more thrills.
Something Precious Has been Destroyed is a French piano and violin ballad full of feeling and love. Yellow Crombie or should that be a camel hair overcoat, a gentle organ tinkles away, reflections uttered wistfully.
Last Night I Loved You and now in the cold light of morning you reflect on just what a wonderful experience it was to love you, slow song, full of love, lust and the joy at spending time with the best thing in his life and his bitter regrets that he has to say goodbye to you.
Dreamless is slow sparse reflections on why you've ended up Dreamless while they look for a sign of ways to find the love you are searching for. The Phantom Sonata has slow hushed vocals and the most minimal percussion, wrapped in atmospheric sounds, drawing the lovers together to find a way out of the depths of misery and back to love and joy once more.
Sundown & Longing has memories of the Road To Mandalay and other cultural signifiers that once connected you, but now seem to push you away, this feels like a long slow apology in hope of redemption, the longing is reflective in the cool sad instrumental outro.
Captive is in three parts Slip Away draws us in with the carefully played keys, before Any Old Gin picks up the spirit with acoustic guitar appreciations, before How Sweet You Were brings this love story to its sad conclusion amongst the slow careful piano notes, declaring his love once more.
Huntly In Love with the atmospheric strings and piano like a Scott Walker symphonic pop epic, he makes clear how you really were the one for him, well until the next lover comes along. Supernatural a ghostly apparition of love gone away, can you believe the ghost she has become after the precious love has been destroyed this sad lament among the strings and piano a glorious elegy for what made their love special.
Pandemonia is in three parts opens with the un-numbered original, slowly coming into your life, bringing the Pandemonium that makes your life feel complete, Part 2 is a slow richly detailed narration in French like the lover replying to everything he said in the first part, strings add mystery to her desolate feelings of loss and sorrow at the parting, even when she switches to English can she make the impossible possible once more, will love conquer all or will it be subsumed by all the pandemonium of his life. Part 22 is the jazzy upbeat dance reprise of the opening track Twenty-Two this is joyful upbeat jazz soul pop. The album closes with Perhaps Even Easy the sparsest of memories classical blues piano adieu.
Find out more at https://shop.lastnightfromglasgow.com/products/the-bathers-pandemonia-2-x-vinyl-lp?_pos=2&_sid=ca64928c0&_ss=r&variant=53575877165429 https://thebathers.bandcamp.com/album/pandemonia https://www.facebook.com/kelvingrovia
