Album review: The B Of The Bang – Beginning. Middle. End.

The B Of The Bang – peculiar name, peculiar band. What appears to be at heart a four-piece is joined by a menagerie of guest cast extras on everything from cello, vocals and piano to a circus of three further guitarists. The B Of The Bang themselves play practically every instrument under the sun on Beginning. Middle. End. (banjo, ukulele, mandolin, double bass, xylophone, glockenspiel), as well as the usual guitar-bass-drums-piano/keyboards line-up. Purely from that eclectic jumble it appears there are hints of early Jethro Tull, a more acoustic Cardiacs, or Broken Records politely mugging the Divine Comedy (“excuse me, Sir, could we trouble you for your song writing muse?”).

If Beginning. Middle. End. is The B Of The Bang’s only album they can quite legitimately claim that they’ve covered as many bases and as much ground as they can. Although released on the producer’s own label, it’s clear that they’ve binned any pretence at going for a hi-fi production and settled for a determinedly lo-fi approach. The three instrumentals that punctuate the album are deliberately mixed low and seem almost submerged in the overall art-folk/avant-pop mannerisms; “Alaska” is all laid-back ballad material before the drums are smacked into submission and the group launch into an untutored mass-harmony effect for the choruses.

“Alfred, Light The Fires” is the first real intimation of an anti-folk stance, combining baritone vocals with an almost Olde London piano knees-up before sideswiping suddenly into a cabaret-esque interlude. The B Of The Bang seem cursed by the committee system of writing and appear to let everyone have their own ideas in every song, leading to a complex yet irritating breadth of styles that never quite gels; only the voice holds it together. Otherwise you could find yourself looking for a map and a compass to help you negotiate the forest of musical by-ways on display.

“The Making Of The Making Of” starts with a church organ and a slow vocal before what sound to be milk bottles are tapped to provide a melody. It’s kind of acoustic, kind of folky and kind of slow. “Delores” is the sound of a man swallowing a rhyming dictionary and then finding ever more inventive ways of subverting the initial premise; the backing jogs along with the inevitable changes of pace and musical instrumentation but it does, at least, have a memorable hook. It’s the closest anyone will come to the Divine Comedy in a while, that’s for sure.

“Desire Lines” recalls nothing so much as The Sea Nymphs and William D. Drake (both Cardiacs alumni) with its male/female counterpoints, acoustic guitar and low-end buzz. Lyrically it’s difficult to pinpoint, but the barely audible drone creates a real feeling of threat and menace. “Seeds” returns The B Of The Bang to nu-folk-rock territory before Beginning. Middle. End. stutters slowly to a crawl and then a halt. “(We used to draw) Treasure Maps” is a cello’n'banjo ballad that marches like an army, melancholic like a crying child.

“Last Day On Earth” takes on a gentle faux-country lap-steel stance and then heads into ever more submerged sounds in penultimate track “End”. By this point The B Of The Bang have dropped the bang and picked up the bland: “A New Road” is a poor man’s Christmas song designed to finish Beginning. Middle. End. on a note of hope. Unfortunately, it is the least distinguished and most recyclable song on the album, so it leaves a somewhat bitter taste on the palate.

With its cock-eyed attempts at trying to be all things to all people (both outside and inside the group) Beginning. Middle. End. is, at best, only a partial success. Some of the songs are fine, but it’s the three buried instrumentals that really hooked me and I’m sure that’s not the route the band are following.

Only God knows how to sum this up.