Artisans & Merchants marks the first new material from The Van Pelt in over 25 years, for those of you like me not in the know, The Van Pelt were an Emo shoegaze band from New York who are apparently loved by EMO Crate diggers. The Van Pelt are Chris Leo, Neil O'Brien, Brian Maryansky and Sean Greene with special guest appearances from Ted Leo and Nate Kinsella.
The album opens gently on We Gotta Leave, that takes an almost drum 'n bass style snare part that evolves, as the vocals come in to explain everything that's gone wrong, to make it clear that the only option left is the We Gotta Leave and like now option, no waiting about.
Image Of Health is built around a repeating guitar figure that's a little bit Sparkle In The Rain era Simple Minds, but without the terrible 80's drum sound, as the song gets going, the core of why your Image Of Health is so important to you, even as the Police come to arrest you, there is quite a tale at the centre of this song.
Artisans & Merchants crams a lot into the lyrics as the guitars soar, against a very steady beat, this will make you think as the words slowly seep in, you figure out if you should wait at that red light or not.
Punk House is of course nothing like a punk song, it sounds far too thoughtful and deliberate, as they describe what it was like to have to doss down at the Punk House when out on tour back in the day, when you're playing sparsely populated venues, sleeping on fans floors etc.
Old Soul From Different Epochs is a great title, to take us on a journey into how some dates go as you find yourself wondering if your from the same epoch as your date, this is slow thoughtful and deliberate as the tale unfolds, as eras and decades dissolve more questions appear.
Grid ups the pace a good bit, as they tell us about seeing a great band, could they have gone to see The Grid, if so I guess they ended up almost as deaf as I did after seeing The Grid back in the day, this is about losing all your stuff, as you've gone on a bender and while you know exactly where you are in the city, your pockets seem to have been emptied making you more and more desperate searching around a city built around a Grid.
Cold Coconuts isn't as crazy as the Coconuts Reckless Love sing about, but this takes us on a journey from Addis Ababa to Lubbock, with scratchy guitars and close harmony backing vocals that allow the main vocals to sit on top creating a weird dreamscape.
Did We Hear The Same Song is a question I'm sure many bands ask after reading my reviews, wondering how I came up with what I thought of the music. This takes us on another journey like a speedy tour, this is fragments from a long tour set over gentle almost dubby guitar lines that keeps revolving as they discuss Astral Weeks once more, while waiting for the daily play of Tear for Fears, this name checks enough songs to make a credible playlist from, it also serves as a good tribute to the late great Tom Verlaine whose song craft is mentioned among all the other references.
The album closes with Love Is Brutal that is about as gentle a song to begin with as you could wish for, almost like Spiritualized it feels dreamy, lush, opiated love scene. It pulses gently to allow you to wipe away any tears you might have for the brutality of what happened between the star-crossed lovers.
Find Out More at https://thevanpelt.bandcamp.com/album/artisans-merchants https://www.facebook.com/thevanpelt
