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Mull Historical Society, "Us"
XL
Few truly solo artists can produce an album with this kind of majesty.The last time we heard from Mull Historical Society was 2001's Loss,a carefully planned work and worthwhile listen, but featuring a bit toomuch extraneous nonsense. Two years later, founding member Alan Malloyhas departed, leaving Colin MacIntyre to act on his own. Since theywere his songs to begin with—Mull Historical Society has always workedfrom MacIntyre's extensive backlog of already-written songs—it seemslike this shouldn't be that big a deal. Seeing the immense failure ofother solo artist projects where other band members have departed tellsotherwise. He could just as easily screw it all up instead of making animpressive record. Thankfully, here he manages the latter, as Usis my front-runner for album of the year at this point. Wonderful useof strings, piano, and bright guitars intermingle under MacIntyre'sdecidedly goofy voice, as he gives it all in these songs, playing outhis emotions with no strings attached. Everything tends to brisklyshuffle or jangle along with a great mix of instruments and subjectmatter. When things do slow down a bit, like on "Asylum," there's stilla bright edge that could very well be a train at the other end of thetunnel. I didn't care, though, as long as it sounds this good, thiscomplete. The album is great from conception to execution, even whenMacIntyre shows off his trademark odd sense of humor on tracks like"The Supermarket Strikes Back." This is a transition point, where anartist makes or breaks themselves based upon past experience, and MHSblows right past it without a care in the world. I could listen to tenrecords of this and still not get enough.
Few truly solo artists can produce an album with this kind of majesty.The last time we heard from Mull Historical Society was 2001's Loss,a carefully planned work and worthwhile listen, but featuring a bit toomuch extraneous nonsense. Two years later, founding member Alan Malloyhas departed, leaving Colin MacIntyre to act on his own. Since theywere his songs to begin with—Mull Historical Society has always workedfrom MacIntyre's extensive backlog of already-written songs—it seemslike this shouldn't be that big a deal. Seeing the immense failure ofother solo artist projects where other band members have departed tellsotherwise. He could just as easily screw it all up instead of making animpressive record. Thankfully, here he manages the latter, as Usis my front-runner for album of the year at this point. Wonderful useof strings, piano, and bright guitars intermingle under MacIntyre'sdecidedly goofy voice, as he gives it all in these songs, playing outhis emotions with no strings attached. Everything tends to brisklyshuffle or jangle along with a great mix of instruments and subjectmatter. When things do slow down a bit, like on "Asylum," there's stilla bright edge that could very well be a train at the other end of thetunnel. I didn't care, though, as long as it sounds this good, thiscomplete. The album is great from conception to execution, even whenMacIntyre shows off his trademark odd sense of humor on tracks like"The Supermarket Strikes Back." This is a transition point, where anartist makes or breaks themselves based upon past experience, and MHSblows right past it without a care in the world. I could listen to tenrecords of this and still not get enough.
