The self-titled debut album by indie Supergroup Railcard brings together Rachel Love with Ian Button and Peter Momtchiloff who between them have been in loads of bands including Heavenly, Swansea Sound, Dolly Mixture. Ian also helped compile the new Brazen Hussies Tribute album currently waiting to be reviewed. They were all born in 1962 but were willing to allow young turk Allison Thompson to join in the fun on trumpet. The album was recorded at The Sunday School in Kent with Allan Crockford mixing the album. This debut brings together the bands first two ep's and adds three new songs to the mix, Railcards second album will apparently be out later in the year if Railcard are more reliable that Southern Trains.
The album opens with The Kinks with female vocals tones of Narcissus, this has Rachel's sweet vocals while she despairs at the Narcissist she's been spending too much time with, how does she turn him into a caring sharing open human being, or during the break down will she just have to scream in agony at all his self-centred ways.
Born In '62 reflects on all the things you'd be familiar with if you were born in '62 like my elder brother was, this has a hazy late 60's feel to all the reflections of how life was a whole lot better, no matter how much you had to cadge cash from your parents at least it was only a tenner for a lump of hash.
Cherry Plum almost feels like a New Seekers upbeat song for dreaming of Cherry Wine and other delights. Revolutionary Calendar is for someone who thinks we should have a decimal calendar, renaming all the days of the week and months after herbs and flowers, this sounds like a conversation had while passing round footlong bifters, dreaming of the most perfect harmonies you can come up with.
Northern Soul Dancing has that foot stomping beat, for staying up all night, doing jumps and twirls, always carrying some talc with you, hoping to be a modern Norther soul classic, I hope they have a proper dance sensation video for this song.
Slow Train that accepts your Railcard to glacially take you on a very out there trip, through the apple smoke over the horizon to a magical land, where chamber pop like this tops the charts and turns Railcard into international superstars accepted everywhere, instead of onto some long-forgotten branch line.
Railcard is all sweet harmonies about all the places you can go for free once you have that magical Railcard in your hands, this takes us back to the early 70's bucolic folk rock with the gentlest of shoop shoop de doo backing vocals while you pull out of another station on your way to somewhere fantastic.
Disco Loadout your gig has finished far too early, the venue has to become a Disco, to help it stay in business, making this the perfect set closer on Friday or Saturday nights , while they give us the lowdown on what it's like to be thrown out of the venue right after you've performed, not like the old days, when you could just stay in the venue and enjoy the disco afterwards, if the change of music didn't have you running for the hills that is.
Day Dream is the state they most cherish, imagining a perfect peaceful world where we love each other and all get along, pretty pop songs like this are all the rage and all over day time radio, helping to make sure we all feel calm and chilled out.
The album closes with a cover of Dandy Livingstone's classic Think About That once again having a New Seekers vibe, a wonderfully upbeat sunshine vibe to it, it is time we all Think About That and the world in similar way to Railcard, while scratching our heads for where that keyboard part comes from.
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