There is an awful lot about this album that I really like. There is a dark and ‘nighttime’ feel to it and Andre Canniere’s trumpet adds a real ‘Noir’ groove to much of Fleet’s writings.
The band is essentially Fleet on piano and vocals, Canniere on trumpet, Zane Maertens on bass and Joe Evans on drums with help from Pete Kershaw on guitar, Chez Taylor on sax & flute plus backing vocals by Sarah Doe and they play impeccably.
I get the feeling that there is a lot of musical education here as they switch comfortably between jazz and a more poppy groove but the best numbers definitely sit in a jazz based and studious form. When they do rock out – as they do on ‘Love’s Enemy’ it comes as a blast out of the blue but it is still delivered perfectly and moves back into a jazz groove by the end.
The title track opens and closes the album and I could happily bask in it’s dense and almost claustrophobic sound for hours. Anyone who is a fan of noir detective movies will be familiar with the music that accompanies the detective as he walks the mean streets and Fleet and Canniere create that wonderful sense of melancholy and inward thinking. It is a real gem of a track and made all the more perfect through its simplicity and brevity.
Elsewhere there is some humour incorporated in tracks like ‘Been There, Drunk That’ and a rockier singer/songwriter felling in ‘Stolen Years’ but the real power of the album is in his dark Blues ‘All Broke Out With The Blues’ where the emotions and feelings are palpable.
It is a fantastic album, full of gems and one I’ll be listening to for a while to come.
