English post-punk legends The Very Things return with their first new album in thirty-five years entitled `Mr. Arc-Eye (Under A Cellophane Sky)` which features main songwriter, vocalist and instrumentalist RR Dallaway leading the project, and includes original members Steven Burrows (bass), Disney Time (drums), new recruit Tony Sherrard (bass) and special guest, The Cravats’ Svor Naan (saxophones and clarinet). The new album is described by Dallaway as ‘shapeshifting,’ contains ‘ghosts, radiation, an electrician, rivers of sand, a toga, Samantha Stephens, an antique suit, space walks and a scrap iron man’ with themes that include illusion and truth, belief, and reality.
A brief spoken word oration ushers us into `We’re Working On It` as a rolling rhythmic beat leads us along a fairly hypnotic soundscape with audio soundscapes interspliced throughout its journey. We have a much more straight forward rock tinged metrical offering with `Driver` with vocals that have a gravelly appeal which become fairly mesmerising towards the end as the lyrical content is constantly repeated.
`I Don’t Know About You` has a jazzy texture not quite Dave Brubeck but heading there. Again, we have intermittent soundbites and shouted dialogue interwoven throughout with a delightfully alluring organ sound guiding us through. Title track `Mr. Arc-Eye (Under A Cellophane Sky)` begins with the sound of a party come awards ceremony before veering off into a trippy out there almost psychedelic vibe with vocals that flit in and out as the number evolves and grows before ending the number with some manic laughter.
The wonderfully titled `Titanic Suit` opens with a ships funnel blowing and is a funky offering with some appealing sax tones shared throughout, a very danceable offering. We have a further funky / R&B feature with `I Said Yeah` which becomes intoxicatingly trippy towards the end.
`Ghost Pool` is a spectral number that rolls along, part spoken part sung with sax hues and occasional soundbites, delightfully engaging. A tinkling piano draws us into `Time Is Not On My Side` with its repetitive rolling beat and brass shades with a deep vocal sprinkled atop and ends with an ice cream van chime.
`76 Trombone Street` shepherds us out of this release and has a rag-and-bone man`s alerting burgle or siren call before sliding into a final funk-tinged composition which ends with a distant scrapman`s bugle and windswept noise.
`Mr. Arc-Eye (Under A Cellophane Sky)` is slightly idiosyncratic, eccentric and intriguing with music that veers from a little oddball to fairly funky and dancelike but original and unique. Welcome back to the wonderfully weird world of The Very Things.
Rating 8.5/10
