Review:'Woodward,Davey & The Winter Orphans' 'Mystic Science'
- Label: 'Last Night From Glasgow/Deezer'
- Genre: 'Indie'
- Release Date: '21.4.23.'
Our Rating:
Mystic Science is the latest album Davey Woodward & The Winter Orphans it follows on from 2021's Love & Optimism. Davey is best known as a founder member of Brilliant Corners and being in The Experimental Pop Band.
The album opens with a harmonica blast that recalls Mazzy Star, as the intro to Victims fades into view as Davey starts to slowly, carefully tell us the ways he has been turned into a Victim, while doing all he can to not be a Victim of this relationship disaster, the betrayal, the desperation, this is full of desperation as another relationship dies.
Everyone Recommends picks up the pace a bit with shuffling hand drums, gentle brass and harmony vocals on this song for the broken hearted, those that need their friends to rally round and pick them off the floor once more, while Everyone Recommends the same way out of the torpor.
Hell is dark ruminations on how little you can really know someone, as they turn your life from idyllic into hell in a very short time indeed, as the as slow as the Tindersticks noir indie backing, is perfect for the lyrical content.
After Midnight was the bands Xmas single and is a tune my work music player loves to play, so this for me is very familiar now, a wonderfully redolent slightly morose but beautiful song, that brings together the bittersweet nature of how Xmas can affect people in both positive and negative ways, this should be on any playlist of downbeat Xmas classics.
Call Me Satan is deep dark rumbling blues, all about his troubled relationship with his mother who always called him Satan, with yelps and howls from the bowels of distain for all the things that led to his mother having that impression of her son.
So And So keeps us in dark bleak territory with the life lessons learnt or ignored from the Silver screen and politicians as he confesses to his addictions.
Confetti makes clear the last thing you should do is throw Confetti on Davey's head, he won't see it as a declaration of love or support, but as another sign of how hellish things have become, no matter how cool Chet Bakeresque the trumpet part is.
Nationalists appears to rework the guitar part to La Bamba on this treatise of despair at the behaviour of Nationalists everywhere.
Blue Mink has a slowed down Ska beat as the questions come at us, punctuated by the harmonica, we hope everyone Davey sings about makes it through and the National Front gets what's coming to them.
Nights see's Davey cuddling up to that harmonica to hopefully get some relief as he's stuck doing the online shopping, searching for a way out as he promises he'll be by your side in the morning forever more.
Black Dog is another coal black song about the nightmare of depression, as the love has left you all alone, hurting, full of pain, the need for remorse as you exorcise your demons to keep the Black Dog at bay in the way that only a great trumpet solo can.
The album closes with an acoustic strum through Elevate that takes us down by the cemetery where the strings caress the hurt deep in your soul.
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