Do you remember, ‘The Slaughtered Lamb’? For those with weak stomachs, it was the most unfriendly pub in Yorkshire, into which the ill-fated Yank hill-walkers strayed in ‘An American Werewolf in London’. Hopefully the welcome will be warmer for late-of-Oxford eight-piece Captive State when they take up their residency at the Farringdon branch of that establishment. They certainly deserve one.
Their current EP opens splendidly with ‘Mona’, a tune which can only be described as groove-based folk-pop. Is this a new genre? Perhaps, although there are echoes of The Super Furry Animals in there. Oh, and the producer is Lemon Jelly’s Nick Franglen, so the credibility levels are already pretty damn high. Captive State’s secret weapon is their horn section, which blows a lovely blowsy wind over the track. Warning! Hippy-haters should beware, as the lyrics are unapologetically of the ‘peace-out, man’ variety, and there is even what I call a ‘Send for Ravi’ moment, in which a sitar player takes a solo. Possibly the only misstep in a complex and wonderful piece of work.
Dave Gilyeat and Tim Bearder single-handedly justified the licence fee when they played the next track, ‘China White Doll’ on their BBC Oxford local music show last week. Imagine if Scott MacKenzie, instead of getting in a load of San Franciscan stoners to record his hymn to the city, had instead enlisted the Bilston Glen Colliery Band: hopefully this barmy idea gives a flavour of the unearthly gloriousness of this track. Ambitious, tender, passionate, timeless and brilliantly paced, this is the love song in epic form, culminating in an almost Schubertian piano coda. Quite simply, the opportunity to hear music like this is why I write reviews.
The remaining two tunes are pretty decent but don’t reach the level of the first two. ‘Weatherman’ starts with some annoying chirpy noises that sound like a saw put through an octaviser, before a rather unremarkable folk-rock number emerges. Think Kasabian fronted by The Beta Band’s Steve Mason. (Actually, don’t. It’s rather an unappetising prospect). Franglen does his best with various bleeps, bloops and loops, but he can’t hide the essential ordinariness of the tune. ‘Lost’ starts prettily enough with more lazy-day hippy-dippy vocals, before launching egregiously into a straightforward Robert Palmer-flavoured rocker that might have been in Patrick Bateman’s album collection in ‘American Psycho’. Actually, bombing down the M5 on the way to Devon, I quite enjoyed it as cruising-music, but then again, so would Jeremy Clarkson.
These reservations aside, Captive State have managed two brilliant numbers on a four-song EP, which promises much for the full album. I would recommend anyone to take a trip to Farringdon (two Rs, regrettably) to see them, but if the locals start telling jokes about the Alamo, to promptly scarper.