Death and Vanilla want to take you back, way back… back to the future! Well, the future as seen from the swinging ’60s at least.
Just imagine John Barry’s spytastic Ipcress Files soundtrack re-engineered by Delia Derbyshire and Brian Wilson with a soupçon of “ye olde folklore” for added mystery machine. Dulcimers. Mellotrons. Moogs. Field recordings on scratchy, cracked vinyl. Eery flutes. Reverb dialed to 11. Yes, “A bit like Broadcast or early Portishead, then.”
To Where the Wild Things Are proposes an interesting if familiar journey, but the kitschy, “poppier” first half feels oddly lifeless. It’s like those fake ’50s Nevada nuclear test towns full of mannequins and picket fences. The music appears gently cheerful and awash with signature, perky xylophone riffs, but Marleen Nilsson’s coolly anaesthetized vocals sound disembodied, disconnected and distant. This set-up swiftly becomes repetitive and predictable. “Necessary Distortions” is the sound of Harry Palmer floating through a subterranean shuffle of bohemians, berets, beehives and basement organs softly before “The Optic Nerve” adds a few crashing waves, seagulls and possibly Patrick McGoohan being pursued by an enormous beach ball. Dreamy? Yes. Thrilling? Nah. The dandelion delicate “California Owls” and bouncy, bonny “Time Travel” conjure up the brighter side of the Velvets and Beach Boys respectively but even their sunny-side up smiles can’t disguise a suspicion they’re hollow beneath the sparkly surface. Of the first five, only “Arcana” stirs the senses. A ravishing chill akin to escorting Julee Cruise through a dusty wardrobe into the crystalline carnival of Narnia itself.
Luckily, the more atmospheric, adventurous flip-side dons the wolf-suit and things finally get a little Wild. The lush “Follow The Light” spins a sensual, swaying swoon with an illuminated, “light at the end of the tunnel” chorus whilst the spectral “Shadow And Shape” flickers fireside like “Scarborough Fair” recited by an alluring Medieval witch. “I will watch them play” it sighs sinisterly. The beguiling “Moogskogen” is a real bleak beauty even though it shivers in the shadow of Broadcast’s similar “I Found the End”. A landslide lullaby as forlorn as flowers in the cemetery. But “Hidden Reverse” is the “King of all wild things”. Almost prog rock, it’s the sensation of being lost in the forest after midnight running from the “Terrible eyes” and the “Terrible claws”. It’s also vaguely reminiscent of Shawn Phillips’ marvelously morose World In Action TV theme. If only Things didn’t fizzle out then with the pendulum swinging snoozefest “Something Unknown You Need to Know”.
Death and Vanilla’s Things has moments of mischief and magic, but someone definitely needs to shout “Let the wild rumpus start!” a little sooner next time.