If you want a crazy twisted fucked up soundtrack for the crazy fucked up twisted times we are living in you could do a lot worse than the Cravats latest offering Hoorahland. 43 years after the bands inception, they remain addictively bizarre, their jazz funk fusion combined with off the wall mind-bending lyrics.
Sinisterly unsettling is another phrase I would use to describe the tunes on this album. Hoorahland is the theme park you wouldn’t want to take your kids to. Like a Disney resort on acid to play on your kids’ deepest fears and darkest nightmares.
The Shend has a voice, and an image, that cannot be ignored. Once heard, never forgotten. Couple that with other original member Svor Naan and his jazz sax, you have the unique and never to be forgotten sound that forms the basis of The Cravats
Outlandish
Everything you need to know about the band is summed up and incorporated into the opening bars of Goody Goody Gumdrops – Svor’s sax, The Shend’s distinctive vocal and the outlandish lyrics. “Yes, today I’m a rusk made by Farley, Salvador Dali…” At times I can’t help but hear a stark raving bonkers Jeremy Clarkston in The Shend’s intonations. No offence meant. Goody Goody Gumdrops fades, the drums thunder in, jarring insistent sax and driving rhythm lead into Shy, a story of anxiety and low self-esteem. Bangin’.
The whole album is a glorious amalgam of the unique talents of all the musicians involved. The aforementioned pair of founding members alongside Viscount Biscuits on guitar (why do I suddenly feel hungry?), Joe 91 on bass and Rampton Garstang on drums. Same Day has ominous undercurrents as it laments every day being the same. Who’d have thought that a few months ago…
Now the Magic has Gone
One of the highlights of the album follows next. Advance apologies for the theme park/Disney/animation references but I can’t help it. Now the Magic has Gone highlights what I said earlier in terms of Disney on acid playing on fears and nightmares. The song feels exaggerated and larger than life, in my overactive imagination sounding like a long-lost song from an imaginary director’s cut of A Nightmare Before Christmas. The larger than life element is heightened by the welcome appearance of a certain Jello Biafra aiding and abetting with the Oogie Boogie like comparisons. Astonishingly good.
The dissonant portentous jazz continues into Good For You and you know that The Shend has his tongue firmly in his cheek when he sings the congratulatory refrain. Then the mid album “break” comes in the form of a disturbing promotional snippet for Hoorahland, the name repeated over a distant saxophone and intense humming. Oh, How We Laughed!
And when this is all over…There is No God. Layered baleful sax lines underline the fact that “you’re all alone” add grumbling bass and some crashing cymbals and the picture is complete. The grumbling bass once again kicks off March of the Business Acumen, the chorus portraying a looming force sweeping in to conquer us all.
Eccentricity Abounds
Trees & Birds & Flowers & Sky isn’t the sweet and innocent song the title suggests. It is a song about the end of the world. “This is how boring the end of the world will”. Indeed. The eccentricity abounds again on Jam Rabbits complete with Eastern bazaar like saxophone and crunching riffs before penultimate track Morris Marina (oh damn that Jeremy Clarkston image has just returned) combines all the musicians perfectly in a final heads down race to the finish line.
And so, the title track ends the album in a suitably jerky trembling ill-omened manner. At the end of the day, when it gets dark, and your personal shark, has swum upstream, you know what I mean… The Shend verbally winks at the listener before launching into the sombre cadences of the chorus.
In these times when we can’t leave our homes for any length of time, take an imaginary visit to Hoorahland. You may be scarred for life, but it’ll be worth it.
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