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Review: 'CLEM SNIDE'
'You Were A Diamond'   

-  Label: 'HHBTM Records'
-  Genre: 'Nineties' -  Release Date: '18 November 2016'-  Catalogue No: 'HHTBM180'

Our Rating:
Yes, finally in 2016 Clem Snide's debut album came out on Vinyl for the very first time. It arrived with 6 bonus tunes on the download card to tempt anyone who already owns the original album. Clem Snide were one of those 90's bands I heard about but never really heard much of, so apart from that long-gone hype I'm coming at this with fresh ears.

The album opens with Better, which reminds me a lot of The Silos' circa Cuba only with slightly more cello and a slightly deeper vocal too. Nick Drake Tape sounds like they are attempting to write and produce their own Nick Drake song. It has that otherworldly beauty and the lush string arrangements and it's very close in spirit. By now, you're feeling you may need some red wine to accompany this album. This song is really beautiful and brings up all sorts of memories of the first time someone played me their Nick Drake tape in Cambridge, Massachussetts in 1986.

Row opens with slowly plucked strings and wide open spaces to allow what sounds like a zither to slowly move across the room as the lyrics unfold and tell a sad story to wallow in. You'll have turned the light down as I'm just about to for this song and album. That's better: this isn't bright light music more dark of night music.

Your Night To Shine is a slow building plaintive love song as if he wants to serenade as well as encourage her until he's singing about Mustard gas filling his lungs and we are in totally different territory. The music has become the angry wall of the pain and sorrow of her night to shine. I love the way the song falls away into a cushion of strings as it fades back out.

I Can't Stay Here Tonight is the sort of tale you might expect from the title but with barely-there yet beautiful backing which is Tindersticks-esque but with a much clearer vocal as someone has lit the candles in vain. Maybe they ran out of Red wine or just got lonely or needed some music for Bedsitters.

Yip Jump Music has really intense strings initially and is another song that reminds me of The Silos. It would sound good next to Tennessee Fire on a set list of Mordant dance songs, even if it's meant to be a lullaby.

Uglier Than You is the rant at the end of a relationship.Fruit Salad Stains is a couple more sips of whiskey down the road from Uglier Than you and it's slower and almost less there but totally enveloping you in its pain.

Lost On The River wakes us up a bit as it's far more upbeat country-folk song with cellos and banjos, It's one of those "getting lost on the river of Love, someone break out the mead go on you know you want to" type scenarios before the song takes a turn for the failure of the love to be reciprocated and we're back to joy again and a good choice of Dylan cover.

Nothing Is Over Not Yet is the hope of another couple of nights, maybe, if you're lucky. Slow plucked and bowed strings sit in for company. Chinese Baby is seemingly about learning to drive and being through with love. It's whispered into our ears at about 4 am and this is such a sadly beautiful way to close an album.

The bonus tracks open with the slow, cello-led Accident that is like watching the mess unfold in super slow motion in an episode of CSI. It's sorrowfully beautiful; the sort of song that would guarantee the scene was a real tearjerker.

Estranged Half Brother is a conversation with said family member asking what happened to the things he took when he left with just a solo acoustic accentuating the story.

The second version of Nick Drake Tapes comes across more Five Leaves Left than anything and is almost lusher than the original album version, plus it doesn't have the same sense of claustrophobia the original version has. No matter as both versions sound great. Funeral Song Of The New Jersey Wape is as sad as the title suggests: sparsely-executed and beautifully produced. Like everything on this album, just keep the lights down low to best appreciate it.

By this point I'm wondering how I never got into Clem Snide first time round. Certainly, if the latter albums are half as good as this I need to hear them even. I'm feeling this even before the excellent Parable comes on as a strummed tale of hope and love and need and a decent parable of course.

The final bonus track is Renegade, another strummed demo as he claims he could be our renegade. A really nice way to end what should be an album in every cool record collection and I am still wondering how I missed an album this good first time round. More fool me.


Go over to the good folks at Happy Happy Birthday To Me records and order one today.

Clem Snide at Happy Happy Birthday To Me Records

Now I'll go and turn the lights back on.
  author: simonovitch

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CLEM SNIDE - You Were A Diamond