Record Reviews
Near Death Experience
By René Schaefer
Harry Howard steps out from his brother’s considerable shadow with a great work of his own, writes RENÉ SCHAEFER.
[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.] Scanning the titles of Harry Howard’s debut album, one might reasonably assume that this man has a serious shoe and foot fetish going on, apart from an obsession with human frailty and the process of aging. Certainly, the guitarist’s self-deprecating sense of humour is on display throughout these 13 songs, but it would be a mistake to think that all is light-hearted fun in Howard’s universe.
Rather, he has absorbed the fine art of couching existential dread in wry, absurdist language from the lyricists in his previous bands – Simon Strong in the much-missed Pink Stainless Tail, and to some extent Howard’s older brother Rowland, in whose outfit These Immortal Souls he served his apprenticeship as bassist from 1987 to 1998.
Not beholden to his sibling’s musical style, Howard confidently asserts his own personality. His guitar playing and songwriting owe more to the post-punk pop of bands like Wire, The Stranglers and The Fall, with a sly nod to the urgent melodicism of mid-’60s garage rock. It’s an approach that worked a treat in Pink Stainless Tail, his slashing rhythmic chug providing the musical basis for the feverish visions of William Burroughs-obsessive Strong.
As a vocalist in his own right, Howard is a lot more mellifluous than either of those frontmen, despite a deliberately deadpan delivery. His musical foil, keyboardist and life-partner Edwina Preston, balances this with some acerbic vocalisations of her own. On the duet ‘We Can’t Decide’, for example, they trade verses like a Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood from hell, while the beefy rhythm section of Clare Moore on drums and Dave Graney on bass doubles the frisson of couples making music together. Indeed, the Clare and Dave show is this band’s secret weapon, as they add a musical wallop and attack to proceedings that is reminiscent of their erstwhile group The Moodists, making sure that the forward momentum never lets up.
Ostensibly an ironic lament for lost youth, ‘The Old Man Blues’ contains some of the driest lyrical couplets in modern rock, such as “These days I suck on boiled sweets/Instead of upright nipples.” Preston displays her mastery of the stylophone on ‘Blood Test’. An instrument seldom heard in rock’n’roll, it has more often been embraced by quirky experimentalists, such as Tall Dwarfs, but here its potential as a keyboard substitute is unleashed to brilliant effect.
‘We Can’t Decide’ is a comically exaggerated, yet poignant, exploration of the kind of irrational resentments that can build up in the hot-house environment of long-term relationships. The difference is that Howard and Preston exorcise these demons through a song that makes one smile at the absurdity of such romantic ruts. The song is both funny and disarmingly honest.
In contrast, ‘By Our Own Hand’ is a touching ballad, which evokes the fuzzy warmth of drug-induced oblivion in the suicide pact of an ageing couple. The poetic imagery of threadbare cardigans and holding hands in the bank queue while staring at the television monitor in the corner are simply beautiful. Howard tops off the pathos with a brief and gorgeous solo. From the sublime to the surreal, ‘Sick Sick Sick’ begins by recalling the childish joy of staying home sick from school, before segueing into hallucinatory ramblings about witch doctors and the US war machine.
The highlight of the album is the stunning ‘(The) Trouble With Girls’. Its mock-misogynism delivers a tongue-in-cheek reflection on male attitudes towards women, and neatly deconstructs the mixed messages favoured by (among many others) the Nick Cave school of songwriting. Howard picks up on these men’s seemingly irresolvable ambivalence towards women as both objects of desire and “obsessive, possessive devil’s minions”, intent on luring hapless men to their doom. Listening to this song, I can’t help but picture the knowing smirks on Preston and Moore’s faces as they hunker down over their instruments on stage.
“Howard realises when less is more, and that the song should always come before the pyrotechnics.”
‘Darling Head’ percolates along like an outtake from Brian Eno’s classic glam-rock album Here Come The Warm Jets, while ‘Since We’ve Been Dead’ is the song most likely to inspire Saint Vitus-like uncontrollable dancing in the streets, should it ever filter through to the wider population. “Infectious” is the appropriate word. Howard’s knack for choppy rhythm playing, in the manner of Dave Davies, is vividly highlighted in this tune. Like The Kinks’ guitarist, Howard realises when less is more, and that the song should always come before the pyrotechnics.
To extend the ’60s allusion, the band throws in two bona fide garage stompers. ‘Old Black Shoe’ and ‘Size 9 Feet’ should gladden the hearts of any fans of The Troggs or The Monks. The latter song especially is a nugget of simple delight, right down to its caveman approach to rhapsodizing the girl of ones dreams.
Near Death Experience is a remarkably consistent statement of intent from a truly original musician no longer content to be sideman to other greats. Howard has assembled a cracking band which plays like their lives depend on it, and their fiery enthusiasm has been perfectly captured on this recording. It is authoritative, stylistically coherent and fully formed; mature, yet youthfully exhuberant; self-mocking, yet joyful in its playful levity. One couldn’t really ask for more.
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