I put this on and, about three songs in, I thought, "Shit, I'm going to have to rethink my opinion about the best Clientele album." Damn, I love this band. Since I last wrote about them, my Clientele gig count for 2008 has gone up to six.
It wasn't love at first listen, though. I guess I must have heard of them first via the Galaxie 500 mailing list. I remember going into the Forever Changes shop on Ecclesall Road in Sheffield and asking if I could listen to a bit of this album on headphones. As I was in the Chickfactor/twee-pop/lo-fi indie hub of South Yorkshire, the kind bloke behind the counter was only too happy to oblige. But after five minutes, I decided it wasn't very distinctive and left it at that.
Fast forward a few months to September 2002, and we're at the Chickfactor Ball in Shepherds Bush. As mentioned at least once before, The Clientele were playing there, but we more or less ignored them because we thought it was better to hang out in the upstairs balcony bit, just because Stephin Merritt was there too. What were we expecting? To be asked for a light and strike up a conversation of casual bonhomie?
Afterwards I felt a little guilty, and stupid, about that. So I went back to Forever Changes and bought this album as penance for not paying attention when it was due. Natural justice prevailed more or less immediately: I fell in love with the album very quickly, and wished I'd listened at the Ball. I did Tim a copy, and he loved it too.
See the review comments on the Rate Your Music site for opposing views on whether these early songs are better than the later albums or vice-versa. It's clear to me now that I love them all.
At this stage the band couldn't afford string sections and Louis Phillipe to arrange them. There's a sort of home-made quality to the recordings, but it sounds so good that you wonder whether the home-made bit is artifice. Loads of reverb on the vocals and wonderful little touches like the instrument in the background of As Night is Falling, which could be a mellotron or an old organ for all I know, that gives a ghostly edge to the Rigsby-esque refrain of "Oh, Miss Jones!"
I was looking forward to listening to this again, and it ended up being better than I expected or remembered. No wonder I wanted to name the Boy after Clientele guitarist and singer Alasdair Maclean (OK, and
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