Continuing Tapete‘s re-issue series for the albums of Comet Gain is a twentieth anniversary reissue of City Fallen Leaves, which was originally released on Track & Field over here and Kill Rock Stars in the States.
By this time, more members had been shed and the core trio of songwriter David Christian, vocalist Rachel Evans and bassist Kay Ishikawa had been augmented by MJ Taylor on percussion and multi-instrumentalist Jon Slade. Although the band had bedded in by now, the songs and direction were very much David’s responsibility and across the sixteen delightfully ramshackle tracks collected here, his bedsit romanticism and rainy seaside melancholy rub shoulders with punkish disdain and a fleeting sense of desperate alienation.
The beauty of the album is the amount of diversity in what in other hands could be a limited palette. The interplay between Rachel and David’s vocals is an enjoyable thing, very much rooted in the kind of shambling indie sound of the ’80s but updated to reflect the passing of time. David’s poetic sensibilities certainly come to the fore and the loose song structures allow both him and Rachel to weave around the guitar and keyboards.The thrusting rhythm and frustrated vocal of opener “Fists In The Pockets” encapsulates a faded notion of English despair; the feeling of being left behind flooded with memories, a desolate romanticism that continues through the low-rent meander of “Days I Forgot To Write Down”. Here the voice wavers in its heartfelt reach and Alison Cotton from Track & Field compadres Saloon plays viola that adds folky introspection to the mix: “These are the thorns I wear in my crown and these are the words buried deep in the ground”.
“Daydream Scars” is a burst of punky venom, while Rachel’s “Bored Roar” has a jaded vocal smeared over sleazy indie grind. At one point a picked guitar line is overwhelmed by a burst of enthusiasm that turns into a hypnotic churn, while the two central spoken-word pieces are in one case full of despairing disgust over a bass and organ melee while the other is a ghostly thing drifting over wavering organ. Life is reaffirmed on the sentimental “Just One More Summer Before I Go” as the two vocals entwine over a cheap bashed guitar and David insists “I will try to be happy” in the gentle indie strum of “Draw A Smile Upon An Egg”. I could hear a touch of The Go-Betweens in the viola-infused melancholy of “Your Robert!'”and few people could get away with mentioning Raymond Chandler in song and it suiting the atmosphere. Rachel’s line “Shared a mix-tape and a cigarette” on “Fingernailed For You” perhaps sums up the Comet Gain universe in one phrase and you sense a ray of hope in the yearning organ waver as viola brings yet more texture. The two members of Herman Dune join David for the far too short “New Mattress” and the Rachel’s world on “Gone Before We Open Our Eyes” cause you to drift a little, the picture they paint again enhanced by Alison’s viola.There is such a ramshackle charm to these songs that paints a very vivid picture and the final track “Ballad Of A Mix Tape” is a swinging, poignant paean to that outmoded yet essential lovers’ exchange. It is perhaps even more poignant twenty years later as the guitar picks its way around the flow of words like water breaching a dam and a fine conclusion to an album that paints vivid pictures of a particular way of life, romantic yet introverted, yearning yet kind of hopeful.
It is great to have this album back out there and there is a little something more to discover on City Fallen Leaves with every listen.-Mr Olivetti-
