Grant

#10 ‘Pale Green Ghosts’ by John Grant

I didn’t quite get the fuss that surrounded John Grant’s previous album, ‘Queen of Denmark’, when it came out and, re-listening to it in the light of ‘Pale Green Ghosts’ and in a spirit of re-evaluation, I still don’t (as for The Czars, or whatever, I know nothing, life’s too short…) This album, though is really very good, despite looking eighties-wards for much of it’s inspiration. Those of us who remember the digitally rinsed, shiny, bad-synth, Collins-drum-roll, clicky nastiness that overtook much music of the time might look at it’s emergent influence amongst the hip and youthful with a degree of trepidation. Mind you, JG is virtually my age and he somehow manages to handle the tropes in an expansive and assured manner that is completely involving for all it’s Rufus-like knowingness (getting Sinead O’Connor to sing backing vocals on a couple of tracks, for example, is a stroke of genius.) Comparing your own pain to a glacier or the effect of your lovers silence to napalm might seem a trifle excessive, but if you ally the metaphor to a huge, glacial drift of piano and strings or a spare sharp rhythm and a mordant baritone chopping up a weeping string ‘n’ synth sweep it starts to make a whole lot more sense…