Albums

Album Review: Miracle Fortress

Album: Five Roses
Label: Rough Trade

If the CD artwork is to be believed what hides within is the random musings of a decrepit flower-obsessed cat-lady. Instead, it’s a delight to discover a fantastical sonic voyage of emotions. ‘Five Roses’ is the Eno-influenced solo-project of Montreal’s multi-talented Graham Van Pelt. It’s like he’s taken that swinging Beach Boys surferama and thrown it headlong into the wall of sound of My Bloody Valentine.

There are multi-layered soundscapes produced using a multitude of instruments and samples. Running water, handclaps, finger-clicks, waves lapping a shoreline, creaking palm trees and ship-hulls, distant police sirens all feature alongside soft steel drums and guitars, layered vocals, tambourines, tumbling keyboards and bouncing bass-lines.

It’s all contained within complex amorphous sequences, without need for verse or chorus parts, just simple threads eventually running their course. Often lyrics are chosen for their resonant quality over their meaning resulting in baffling harmonies of ‘undo these errors they left behind my teeth’ or ‘with a rifle to stay, a rifle to go’. In places it borders on twee, but ultimately it overcomes these imperfections to form a subtle, ethereal, emotional and rewarding soundtrack to good times.

For fans of: Beach Boys, My Bloody Valentine, Brian Eno
Band link = Miracle Fortress

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Tags: brian eno, cd, miracle fortress, beach boys, review, pop, five roses, music, album

Review commissioned by Music-Zine.

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