The Clientele God Save The Clientele by: Dean Van Nguyen Mon:16-Jul-07 Label: Merge/Popfrenzy Year: 2007 WB rating 38 out of 100

Two years since The Clientele’s breakthrough album Strange Geometry garnered a surprise following on the back of some good reviews, some might have expected the group to broaden their musical palette. This is after all, their first album as a fulltime band after quitting their day jobs.  But unexpectedly the group have regressed, rather than expanded.

The Clientele have always been a modest outfit. Their arrangements are sparse; the guitars usually quiet, rarely strummed and vocalist Alasdair MacLean barely raises his voice above a whisper. Strange Geometry was no five star classic, but it was an enjoyable, romantic record that seduced the ear while drawing heavily on sixties dreamy pop acts like Love and The Zombies. The melodies resonated, rather than just wash over the listener as they do on God Save The Clientele, a record where the band rather than intensifying, attempts to embrace the subtleties of their sound, and in the process, forgets to add any spark to the music.

Not that God Save The Clientele isn’t home to some pretty decent songs and the better tracks do demand repeat listens to appreciate their subtleties. Opener ‘Here Comes The Phantom’ borrows the opening piano chords from The Monkees’ ‘Daydream Believer’ and develops into a upbeat wee pop song. Even back to their earliest demos, the most obvious emotion in The Clientele’s music was sadness. ‘Here Comes The Phantom’ sounds like light at the end of the tunnel. The highlight track ‘Isn’t Life Strange’ plays to all of the band’s strengths: subtle strings, sweet harmony vocals, and slightly more disjointed vocals which help keep things interesting.

Where the album falls down is its dull middle section. A typical example is ‘No Dreams Last Night’, a song that, as the title suggests, is uneventful, sung accordingly in a totally emotionless monotone over dull acoustic plucking. “No Dream Last Night” repeatedly whines MacLean as the track plods on. The only thing striking about ‘These Days Nothing But Sunshine’ is the bizarre Country-and-Western style lead guitar, while instrumental ‘The Dance Of The Hours’ sounds like it belongs on a Mediterranean package holiday promo.

It would have been nice at the half way point the band ripped into a Led Zeppelin rocker to shake things up a bit. Thankfully a change of pace occurs late in the album with the sleazy 70’s disco track ‘Bookshop Cassanova’. Scratchy electric guitars and more muscular strings provides variation to the album, and it’s followed up by the 70s guitar fiddling track ‘The Garden At Night’. Neither track would standout on an album of more worth, but are worthy playlist tracks.

By this late in the album though, it’s tough to get excited about anything. God Save The Clientele feels like one step forwards and two steps back for The Clientele, who have seemingly hit a creative wall. While there is moments on the album that hint at the possibility of a return to form, they are a band sorely missing the X-Factor at this stage in their career.