This is an extraordinarily good record. The very name, NAPOLEON IIIrd, evokes fringe madness of all kinds. There was the French scion of Bonaparte's family who lived in Leamington Spa for a while. Presumably that was punishment for starting and losing the Franco Prussian War. And there was 1966's pop novelty hit "They're Coming To Take Me Away, Ha-haaa" by NAPOLEON XIV - a pseudonym for a recording engineer who worked out a way of shifting vocal pitch on a four track tape machine without speeding it up. (Perhaps the very same iconic reel to reel machine that Wakefield's James Mabbett uses on stage when living out his real life as NAPOLEON IIIrd?)
That disorienting flicker between grandiose dreams and the banality of everyday life is the primary material of NAPOLEON IIIrd's wonderful songs. He's driven mad by the onslaught of alarm clocks, bad driving, crappy employment, public selfishness, deluded celebrity and the fear of muggings. His tunes and his beats and his very odd noises express that unease very well. But his love of music, his girlfriend, the sound of a trumpet and his belief in the possibilities of social transformation from tiny beginnings all rise up in bursts of euphoric sing-along choruses. It could be better! He seems to be yelling. Start with these songs!
The songs indeed. Mostly they have few words. A couple of artfully-made phrases are repeated and twisted about, shuddered, nailed or hymned. They make a point, subvert it, question it, and move on. The muggers are told the songs aren’t worth nicking: "Not when you’re singing them to he man in Cash Converters". He knows as well as we do that these are pearls before swine: the depth, complexity, allusiveness are hidden by the big smiling tune and the ramshackle Beach Boys harmony.
He starts with an instrumental prelude to the A side, and then kicks into a "Call To Arms" which raises the standard for not living your life through the TV. Did I say impossible, glorious dreams?) "Defibrillator" is the mugging track "I love this city but I won’t walk home at night" is the killer line, nestling in there ready to be sung out loud by crowds equally moved to love and fear.
The doom-harbouring noises at the introduction of " The Conformist Takes It All" are indications of the shape of things to come. Sweetly unorthodox electronic sounds and non-standard rhythms provide the alienated, unsteadying backdrop to outbreaks of natural instrumentation and real voices that deliver the sucker punch. "Guys in Bands" fizzes and splutters and even does a bit of Liverpool skiffle (but good for once) before taking us into "Look Out! She cried. It's a trap!" and "Guys in bands get girls". And some Clangers noises at the end. Ace.
"Anti Patria" could be GOD SPEED! warming up, but it goes a bit more ANIMAL COLLECTIVE before transforming into the real NAPOLEON IIIrd and produces the lyrically most interesting track of the album "It's the simplest things we can’t comprehend" he sings. There are themes here that come back in "The Casual Terrorist Vs. The International Board Of Wishing" "Hit Schmooze For Me" Is the big Festival hit. A huge crowd at a fringe stage at last years Carling Festival roared the chorus in a pretty giddy state, helped on by an eight piece band who showed up to make his one-man-band dreams a sun kissed reality. "This is not my life, this is my day job, the way I pay the rent" we roared. Over and over till we fell over.
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The B side prelude acts as interlude and forewarning. It's a little mournful in evoking a large deserted place. It gives way to "Kate's Song", a genuine and touching love song with a ukulele. It isn’t devoid of irony. "I loooooove you" is sung knowingly, with a hint of what sounds a bit like sarcasm. But it's all the more romantic for it, eschewing the nearly disabling tweeness that (say) The Bobby McGhees use in a simlar context. A small masterpiece. Listen often and notice how the emotional mood changes if you shift your eyebrows.
"What We Have Here Is Ending" does mature politics and the notes get lower as the ooh ooh vocal lines get more seductive and the lyric forces us away from slogans and into serious contemplation (but only if we're listening AND thinking). It has a nostalgic, regretful air.
"The Casual Terrorist Vs. The International Board Of Wishing" is a good title. It tells you what the song is about. The opening is long and low, it could almost be CALEXICO underpinning the opening sequence for a reworking of Oliver Twist. (heroic individual denied by bureaucracy). Along with "What We Have …" this seems to be the newest, more extended and more politically direct material in the newest NAOPLEON IIIrd repertoire. "My Superiority Complex" is a more familiar tune, but its new recording puts it into Sunday-best for the album. That's Sunday-best with suit trousers, a cotton shirt a straw hat and three day's stubble. The arrangement, here and throughout the album, contains traces (sometimes large and nutritious helpings) of nuts. Final song " One Song Before Bed To Three Four" could be Lennon in his "Woman is the Nigger of the World phase. Pretty wild. It has a monster guitar break along with the toy xylophone. NAPOLEON IIIrd is a special artist, and if this track prefigures the next developments, album No 2 is going to be interstellar.
For the time being we have a very lovely debut that captures all the best of what NAPOLEON IIIrd has been doing since he played in LITTLE JAPANESE TOY. "Average is not the best you can do!" he yowls (tunefully) in "The Conformist Takes It All". It’s angry, it's hopeful. And it soars a long long way above average. As an album "In Debt To" recognises the legacy of the past, it pushes at the option of new things, and it accepts the impossibility (and sickness) of individuality that doesn’t connect with broader human values.
www.myspace.com/boney3
www.napoleoniiird.com
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