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Review:
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St Paul and The Broken Bones make soul music
the old way: a powerful voice, horns, and
layers of instruments. It's dense stuff, and
over the course of their first four albums
they have pushed the genre to new heights,
perhaps culminating with 2022s The
Alien Coast, which was a
psychedelic disco soul record. It veered in
odd directions, had a deep, funky groove, and
overall was very fun.
But on Angels in Science Fiction
the tunes seem more melancholy. Many of the
tunes are almost ballads, as opposed the funk
soul dance music that made up the previous
record.
The reason for this new sparseness is that
lead vocalist (St.) Paul Janeway has become a
father. These tunes are songs he wrote and
worked on for his then unborn daughter. The
doubt, fear, and hope that such a life change
entails comes through here. It's a quieter
listen, and a very different record, but there
are a few standouts here.
A slippery bass riff drives City Federal
Building along. This song is very much
like The Alien Coast, a sort of
1970s soul fusion sound. It gets dense with
strings and Janeway wailing away, all with
that nice groove.
And Sea Star is my favorite on this
record. The whole song swings, and at the end
the horns come in and the guitar grinds.
Janeway's voice soars theatrically, and the
lyrical imagery is glorious:
I am a starfish
Washed upon the shore
Stuck in the sun's bloom
Just waiting to die
You are the strong tide
Pulling me back in the sea.
It's a song of hope and expectations. Very
nicely done.
But overall, i find the pace of this record
too slow. Sure, i get why they made it, and i
am sure that the songs mean a lot to Janeway,
but honestly, the band can do better. They
striped the sound down here to showcase his
voice and songwriting, both of which are fine
if not excellent, but what i liked about their
earlier records was the depth of them, the
layers of instruments and the way every
element played off of the others. This is too
minimal.
Maybe it will grow on me in time. Maybe. But
right now, if i want to listen to St. Paul and
the Broken Bones, this is not the record i
will reach for.
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