13th Star

It's arrived!

On Thursday I called the office to be told there was a little parcel waiting for me. Sod's law, of course, as I wasn't going back there until today, Monday. But yesterday afternoon it got the better of me, I couldn't wait any longer and decided to pop in to pick it up.
On the drive back home I kept turning the little gem in my hands (and no, it wasn't me driving!) - beautiful.

Finally reaching my CD player I press the start button.

First impression: Field of Crows must have left more of a sign than I'd realised, as while I was waiting for the music I was in the grips of anxiety and fear of another disaster. I needn't have worried. Circle Line set my mind at rest from the word go. Clean, crystal clear sounds.

Of course, with the FoC ghosts always ready to spring, the comparison could only be positive (I'd probably find something good to say about Britney Spears too, in the circumstances), but I think Star deserves a round of applause in its own right.
And given my lack of technical knowledge I can only describe Star by comparing it to FoC.

Where FoC had not a bad production, but an abysmal one, Star appears to be well manufactured, with care and attention and with no hurry.
Where FoC had the Bontempi organ retrieved from my basement, Star has beautiful sounds, hard and clean.
Where FoC had a cardboard cut-out of Fish nicked from the local HMV promotional exhibition, stuck on the Van Gogh with Bostick (yes, I had abstained from commenting on the FoC artwork so far, but I even found that very short of ok), Star has a beautiful artwork, Mark Wilkinson at his best.
Where FoC opened with The Field, Star rocks away with Circle Line.
Where FoC had Turrell... no, enough, I won't shoot on the Red Cross.

To FoC's defence, for what it's worth, I must say that I could never get over my aversion to its sloppy production and even looking at it plunges me into depression. I've never been able to listen to it from beginning to end. I can't overlook the awful sounds to concentrate on the tracks' intrinsic value. I have enjoyed some of them live, but I can't see FoC as a complete unit. The individual tracks could come from just about anywhere, I can't group them under a common denominator. To me, they feel like a huddle of bits thrown together to fill up the 60 minutes of a CD.

On Star, on the other hand, I can find a thread. Even the slow, boring tracks that notoriously give me an allergy (and there are some) fit in and are pleasant to the ear. If I must find a fault, maybe I would have left out the Neapolitan mandolins towards the end of the title track. OK, without the "maybe".

13th Star isn't a groundbreaking album (it reminds me of Sunsets on Empire, at times), but on the whole it can certainly qualify as good - with a sigh of relief.

FoC - played about 3 times in 4 years.
13th Star - 5 spins in the CD player in 2 days.

Get it (or them) here :)