Lucid, Creepy and Embarassingly Therapeutic

The Clientele
Strange Geometry (Merge)

When you are broken hearted, it's very natural to start believing that every love song ever written applies to your case. While this it is probably true you might want to "kiss her lips again" and that "he left me standing by the doorway", it's quite laughable that a personal song written by someone you likely don't know can touch you so personally. Come on! You hear the lines you want to hear, ignore the ones that don't apply and presto! The song is about your situation. Nevermind the song is actually about a dog, the death of a father, huffing pain thinner or the dreaded misleading "love god" track (eesh. gross.). I'm guilty of this no doubt. Having said that, I will say with a complete straight face, The Clientele might have saved my life.

I know that's more than a bit of an exaggeration and I'm guilty of the same blind application, but never has an album like Strange Geometry appeared in my life in such a timely fashion. When I first began listening to The Clientele, I enjoyed their dream pop superficially, lilting melodies powered by reverbed pysch guitars. But then, on a cathartic bad day that got worse, I found myself listening to a Clientele mix I made for my tape deck, "House on Fire" (off The Violet Hour) while driving back from Marin in the morning, "Five Day Morning" (Suburban Light) in the afternoon on scorching sidewalks of Lakeshore Ave. and staring blankly into the ceiling to "Everybody's Gone" in the middle of the night. "Everybody's Gone" became a staple for the next few weeks (along with Gilbert O'Sullivan's "Alone Again, Naturally" but that's whole other nut to crack).

Then came the first track off Strange Geometry (also the first track I heard off of the album), "Since K Got Over Me" and it hit me like ton of bricks. I, at that point, became Alasdair MacLean, but Asian with a lower voice and far less talented. Sure, someone has said what MacLean has said before, but his timing was impeccable and never has being brokenhearted been so descriptively poetic and at the same time grounded in reality. This is what Strange Geometry is all about.

Strange Geometry is The Clientele fully realized. After a host of uneven releases that showed glimpses of brilliance and piles of potential, The Clientele has harnessed their songwriting skill to display not only complex melodic execution but a real gift at lyrics. MacLean's soaring melodies set up his words immaculately. "Geometry of Lawns" is very similar to the early 70s soft singer/songwriter stuff (eh, Gilbert O'Sullivan tie in here?), catchy and soothing. MacLean's voice is nearly a whisper: "Once a spell of grace came over me/and I walked on through empty streets/redbricks, sweatshops and madrassahs/Inside everything I heard a voice/ mechanical, beyond itself/like a sentence of a dreamer". The swirling poetry matches the hooks step by step, the words contemplative as the music. And all of a sudden, you find yourself smack dab in the middle of the London fog, specs of mist on your cheek. It's that palpable.

MacLean and his cohorts, James Hornsey and Mark Keen, can't take all the credit. The incomparable Louis Phillipe lends his arrangement skills with one the most impressive displays of string usage. Phillipe gives the album a touch of class, an elegance that goes a long way to making Strange Geometry special. "Impossible" was a decent track off the Ariadne EP, a nice little dichotomy of fuzzed out pyschedelic licks and twee pop tunefulness. With Phillipe's workmanship, the subtle but noticeable string arrangement makes this track an absolute heartwrencher. As jangly guitar plays off the soaring violins, the song breaks into an unnerving distortion, an epic ending indeed. Phillipe's arrangements give ballads like "(I Can't Seem To) Make You Mine" and "Step Into the Light" a 70s soul quality, like early Al Green, and there ain't much sadder than great soul music. Even if it's three pale North Londoners in hip clothing.

When it all boils down, The Clientele makes great music. "My Own Face Inside the Trees" and "When I Came Home From the Party" are just hands down brilliant pop songs. Before you label me overdramatic for saying a band speaks to me, listen to it when you've been left by a lover and tell me its not true. Dirty trick, I know, but if you see footprints in the sand next to mine, it ain't Jesus. The Clientele is not "love god" music; it's music for the people. It's just speaking to you if you want to hear it.

The Clientele will steal your hearts or bore you to death (hopefully the former) at Bottom of the Hill on 11/12/05.

The Clientele: http://www.theclientele.co.uk/