Unless you’re Scott Walker, making a trio of truly great LPs doesn’t usually take a quarter of a century, but a gap of two decades nonetheless elapsed between ST. VITUS DANCE’S debut ‘Love Me Love My Dogma’ (1987) and its eventual follow-up ‘Glypotheque’ (2008) during which time the band drifted into regular day jobs and singer Noel Burke chiselled away a few years fronting the under-rated, Mac-less line-up of Echo & The Bunnymen.
Thus, while it was probably fairer to approach ‘Glypotheque’ as more of a fresh start than a ‘follow up’ there was absolutely no doubting the quality of the fiery, intelligent guitar pop it again proffered. The only tragedy was that it remained a relative obscurity and generated little fanfare: a fate that this writer, for one, certainly hopes won’t befall the third (and I hope not final) SVD opus.
Because, put simply, ‘Bystanders’ is the Belfast/ Liverpool alliance’s third consistently great LP out of three. Burke is on typically sparkling, erudite lyrical form, while his band seems incapable of putting their stamp on anything that isn’t at least clawing at excellence.
As with ‘Glypotheque’, the SVD sound on ‘Bystanders’ is dense and tuneful, with electric and acoustic guitars blending intuitively, though this time round Haydn Boyle’s fluid organ and piano flourishes are given more room to breathe. It’s a self-assured guitar pop album first and foremost, though St. Vitus convince whether they’re tackling fuzzy, psych-tinted Velvets-style fare (‘Gospel Oak’), yearning, windswept balladry (‘Landslide’) or the woozy, withering likes of ‘Devil May Care.’
Elsewhere, the palette has been broadened to take in strokes of country and folk. Though built upon gentle acoustic guitars, mandolin and drunken piano, the vivid, roots-y ‘St. John’s Gardens’ appears to deal with homelessness (“my past beyond recall/ what road delivered me from there to here?/ somewhere along the way I waved my white flag to the world”) with grace and empathy. The close-miked, folk-flecked ‘Trojan Security’ is also pretty damn irresistible and the heartfelt ‘Great Divide’ features chamber-folk cello from Sonnenberg’s Dave Thom, though it also ends up going for an epic final burn a la ‘The Silence’ from ‘Love Me Love My Dogma.’
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They save arguably the best of all for last courtesy of ‘Leaning.’ Its rolling drums, droning accordion and bated breath piano build with an almost Doors-y intensity, while Burke’s tremulous croon keeps you on tenterhooks (“second slip by/ gone in the blink of an eye”) until droning, hallucinatory final coda is unleashed, slipping in again through the back door just as you think it’s faded for good.
‘Bystanders’, then, makes a mockery of the concept of a third LP being ‘difficult.’ Its gestation may have again been lengthy, but its execution is nigh on faultless. If you want to do your bit to ensure the survival of intelligent guitar pop (almost an oxymoron these days, sadly) then make the effort to seek this one out. You’ll be heartily rewarded.
Probe Plus Records online
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