It seems an age since I bought ‘Enjoy The Melodic Sunshine’. I’m shocked to discover that it was in fact 5 years ago and was one of the early releases on Alan McGhee’s fledgling Poptones label (who also brought The Hives over from Sweden and gave us the sublime Montgolfier Brothers). What I hadn’t realised was that it was a one album deal and that ‘…Sunshine’ was actually a compilation of two self released albums, ‘Deliverance’ (1999) and ‘Panorama’ (2000).
To be honest when original vocalist Daniel Wylie left in 2002 I’d assumed that THE COSMIC ROUGH RIDERS’ had disbanded. In fact nothing could be further from the truth and CRS released a follow-up ‘Too Close To See Far’ in June 2003….
Hang on a minute that’s the album I’m reviewing. What’s going on?
All I can assume that with a new album due imminently CRS’S new label – Measured Records – has decided to give a belated push to an album that has already received considerable plaudits but maybe failed to sell as many copies as was hoped first time around. It could be the popularity of The Thrills has galvanised some action. Or have I missed something and one of their songs is currently propping up an advert or was it used at the end of an episode of 'The O.C' thus attracting new interest from yo’uns who think music’s Year Zero was the release of ‘Definitely Maybe’?
Whatever. The main difference between ‘Too Close To See Far’ and ‘…Sunshine’ would appear to be a less obvious evocation of the hippy-trippy spirit that pervaded the jangling guitars of their classic Poptones debut. The absence of Wylie’s rich and strong vocals is also evident; not that current front man Stephen Fleming can’t carry a tune. Far from it in fact, but his voice sounds more comfortable when set against the regular back-drop of group harmonies whereas Wylie could work as effectively in isolation.
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Musically the dreamy psychedelia is conspicuous by its absence but this has freed up CRS to take in post 60’s influences and travel to places and time zones beyond – in particular – The Byrds. So now we can hear the telling signs of Big Star (‘Sunrise’), CSN (‘Life In Wartime’, ‘Tomorrow May Never Come’: that also evokes Elliot Smith multi-layered acappella), and Tom Petty (‘Because You’) with a bit of The Fannies (‘Blind’, ‘The Need To Fly’) and Travis (‘For A Smile’) to bring that evocative guitar/vocal partnership up to date. That said they’ve also indulged some other 60’s loves with a track like ‘She’s Never Around’ indebted to The Kinks and in truth The Byrds are never far from the action.
But as easy-to-spot as these influences may be they cannot detract from the simple fact that each song is a joy to experience. Indeed as one critic once commented upon Teenage Fanclub’s immaculate ‘Grand Prix’, that in the absence of Lennon/McCartney it was 1995’s best Beatles record, passing off that comment as a genuine compliment. So - flying in the face of accusations of plagiarism - I’ll do likewise and call ‘Too Close To See Far’ the best Fab Four album of 2005..er..2004..er 2003? What year was it?
No matter, it’s so good, the year doesn’t really matter: we’ll settle for timeless.
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