Rating:
Genre:
Rock
Release Date: 09/18/2001
When they were young, back in their salad days of 1994, the boys and girl of
Gorky's Zygotic Mynci released a single with the catchy title
"Merched Ynneud Gwallt Eu Gilydd." A joyous collision of
Sonic Youth-ful noise and Welsh lyrics abruptly interrupted by a brief
spoken word refrain ("There's no need to worry," assures one voice. "Why is that, Stevie?" asks another) before giving way to an unabashedly
McCartney-esque chorus that betrayed the bandmembers' age ("Because we ain't got school in the morning").
"Merched" was the perfect distillation of the early
Gorky's aesthetic -- genre hopping that often included wizards, lizards, and
prog-ish chord changes, a gift for melody, and a youthful
joie de vivre normally reserved for
Hanson records. But frontman
Euros Childs, his sister
Megan, and their ever-revolving cast of collaborators have grown up, and now nostalgia for worry-free, school-less days informs their work. This theme first appeared on the band's fourth album,
Barafundle, four years ago, and the more the band yearned, the more it streamlined its sound, eschewing noise and odd instrumentation in favor of timeless
pop. By the time last year's
The Blue Trees EP appeared,
Gorky's had gone unplugged entirely.
The Blue Trees was finger-pickin'-good and all, but it seemed the band had lost its edge altogether.
How I Long to Feel That Summer in My Heart,
Gorky's seventh album, is practically a concept album about the bittersweet nature of nostalgia -- specifically, nostalgia for, you guessed it, summer. From the
Muswell Hillbillies-era
Kinks vibe of
"Can Megan" (dig the boozy brass!) to the sleepy but uplifting
"How I Long," reminiscent of
the Velvets'
"Candy Says." "Her Hair Hangs Long" ("seasons come and they may go/promise me our love isn't so"), one of the few moments when
Gorky's lets its freak flag fly, begins as a happy hoedown before an ominous violin freakout emphatically ends the summer and the relationship -- but not the album.
How I Long concludes with the jazzy horns and
Abbey Road-worthy harmonies of
"Hodgeston's Hallelujah," on which
Childs wonders, "what happened to your daughter/everybody loved her." It seems the girl whose hair hung long didn't long for that summer nearly as much as
Childs, which is too bad -- she missed out on the
Ray Davies of the turn of the century; a rocker who grew into a
pop craftsman of the highest order.
~Torey Marcusprog-ish chord changes, a gift for melody, and a youthful
joie de vivre normally reserved for
Hanson records. But frontman
Euros Childs, his sister
Megan, and their ever-revolving cast of collaborators have grown up, and now nostalgia for worry-free, school-less days informs their work. This theme first appeared on the band's fourth album,
Barafundle, four years ago, and the more the band yearned, the more it streamlined its sound, eschewing noise and odd instrumentation in favor of timeless
pop. By the time last year's
The Blue Trees EP appeared,
Gorky's had gone unplugged entirely.
The Blue Trees was finger-pickin'-good and all, but it seemed the band had lost its edge altogether.
How I Long to Feel That Summer in My Heart,
Gorky's seventh album, is practically a concept album about the bittersweet nature of nostalgia -- specifically, nostalgia for, you guessed it, summer. From the
Muswell Hillbillies-era
Kinks vibe of
"Can Megan" (dig the boozy brass!) to the sleepy but uplifting
"How I Long," reminiscent of
the Velvets'
"Candy Says." "Her Hair Hangs Long" ("seasons come and they may go/promise me our love isn't so"), one of the few moments when
Gorky's lets its freak flag fly, begins as a happy hoedown before an ominous violin freakout emphatically ends the summer and the relationship -- but not the album.
How I Long concludes with the jazzy horns and
Abbey Road-worthy harmonies of
"Hodgeston's Hallelujah," on which
Childs wonders, "what happened to your daughter/everybody loved her." It seems the girl whose hair hung long didn't long for that summer nearly as much as
Childs, which is too bad -- she missed out on the
Ray Davies of the turn of the century; a rocker who grew into a
pop craftsman of the highest order.
~Torey Marcus, All Music Guide
;)
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