Is this the end of an era or just another Indie rock casualty?
Either way, it's sad to report that, after 11 years in the business, this is the final album by The Crimea.
This is a band who were famously championed by John Peel and dropped by Warner Bros which, let's face it, is preferable to being courted by a major label and ignored by Britain's greatest deejay.
When the history books are written, reaching number 8 with Baby Boom in Peel's festive 50 in 2003 (two places above White Stripes' Seven Nation Army!) will surely stand as a more impressive achievement that reaching the top 10 of the pop charts.
The downside, of course, is that this kind of marginal prestige doesn't pay the bills. The London-based band fronted by Dublin born Davey McManus have survived for over a decade without ever rising above cult status.
Now, having spent three years training as a nurse, McManus has announced that he is leaving the music scene to help set up an orphanage for impoverished children in Diepsloot, South Africa.
Square Moon was actually self-released in 2011 and, for a while, the intention was to put it out as a free download as they did with Secrets Of The Witching Hour in 2007.
Fortunately, Gary Lightbody of Snow Patrol stepped in to help finance a proper release through two Indie labels: Oxford's Alcopop and Northampton's Lazy Acre. This ensures that, should this indeed be the band's last ever album, they are not ending with a whimper.
What we get is a massive, ambitious and ,at times, overwhelming finale; double album with 22 songs and over 90 minutes worth of music.
McManus' songs are never easy listening and you won't find any sing along choruses here. Many appear to be a kind of cut and paste of stream of automatic writing.
Often, you sense a subtext of disillusionment with the world, on The Only Living Boy And Girl for instance, he sings "If this is all there is I don't play anymore".
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Overall, his lyrics are like coded descriptions of emotional torment, grizzled folk songs full of evocative imagery that it would be foolish to try to reframe in simpler terms. "We speak a language no-one understands" he sings on Jellyfish and it could be argued that most of his songs are attempts to put the inexpressible into words.
Titles give Petals Open When Reached By Sunlight and Listen To Seashells They Know Everything give some idea of this poetic content. This is evident too on Black Belt In Breaking Hearts which begins with the line "Someone switch the moonlight on in the graveyard of champions tonight".
Occasionally, McManus has a tendency to over-emote but more frequently, on songs such as Last Plane Out Of Saigon and Lovers Of The Disappeared the music is moving simply by virtue of the passion behind the vocal performance. Wonderful backing vocals from Tara Blaise also bring a warmth to the tunes.
Being on such an epic scale, this is a record that demands time and patience but, rest assured, there are no fillers here.
The quality of the material is consistently high and McManus proves himself once again to be a unique and charismatic singer songwriter; one who is not content to resort to sentimental banalities or dull platitudes. As he put himself: "I was never going to be Chris Martin".
The Crimea's website
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