Pros: Some fantastic musical ability and great lyrics.
Cons: Not quite up with the first rank of bands, but still very good.
The Bottom Line: A fabulous encapsulation of a period of time in Britain in the late 1980s and very good music worthy of a place in anyone's CD collection.
taylor-mayed's Full Review: Waking Hours by Del Amitri
I have to confess I wasn’t really overly familiar with Del Amitri until I bought this album. I’d heard “Nothing Ever Happens” many times on the radio down the years and had always liked it, but I’d never gotten around to seeking out any of their other material. Eventually I decided that I should take the plunge and see what else they had to offer, hence the acquisition of “Waking Hours”, the album containing “Nothing Ever Happens”, which seemed like as good a place as any to start.
To be honest, I was probably at the back of my mind expecting an to hear a distinctly average album on which “Nothing Ever Happens” would be the stand out track amongst a collection of anonymous late 1980s depressive light rock tracks. In the event I was pleasantly surprised – “Waking Hours” is actually an album of consistent excellence, ten folk/rock style songs that even put me in mind of a more up-tempo and accessible Scottish version of Bob Dylan.
It begins with “Kiss This Thing Goodbye”, a song that definitely evokes Dylan with its use of harmonica. However, the pounding rhythm of the drums and the pace of the song make it quite different from the more famous artist’s work. The lyrical quality of the song is what impresses the most, far superior to most of the material being written at this time, and the use of a banjo as well as the harmonica definitely gives Del Amitri a unique sound amongst many of the other records being recorded in 1989.
“Opposite View” is a much rockier track, in many ways sounding like a predecessor of the 1980s Brit Pop explosion that gave rise to the likes of Oasis and The Verve, although of course Del Amitri are a very different band to either or those two. They have a kind of socially relevant folk-rock quality that would appeal to the critics but at the same time enough musical ability and catchy tunes to be able to qualify as a good act on purely melodic terms.
One of my own personal favourite tracks on the album is “Move Away Jimmy Blue”, a song that single-handedly manages to encapsulate the sense of melancholia and fatalism of living on a housing estate or in flats in Thatcher’s declining Britain. It could also be seen as a tale of how people’s dreams are swallowed up by harsh reality, but whatever the case it is still very impressive, with some excellent guitar work thrown in to give it an all round appeal and a rocky feel.
The fourth track, “Stone Cold Sober”, is another track that you can instantly place as being from the late 1980s, not because of any out-of-date musical style – the music is timeless and excellent and could have been recorded yesterday – but from lyrics such as “while the bomb loses patience”, the cold war beginning to drag to some kind of conclusion finally.
The ending of “Stone Cold Sober” blends into the intro to “You’re Gone”, again firmly rooted in its time with cultural references such as name-check of TV presenter Esther Rantzen. The longest song on the album, it begins quietly before the guitar slowly builds and the faster-paced than before vocal performance really carrying the song along effectively. The use of acoustic guitar and even strings on parts of this track foreshadow some of the best of Oasis’s work some five years down the line, but obviously as always Del Amitri’s lyrics and vocal performances are superior to the Mancunian band’s, although not as anthemic nor as immediately memorable.
“When I Want You” has some impressive instrumentation as well and is probably the most polished song on the album, with some harmonies even thrown in to emphasise the chorus that make it very pleasant and easy to listen to.
This is followed by “This Side of the Morning” another song that uses strings and this gives it a very Celtic folk feel in the intro, but this largely-acoustic ballad is no happy sing-a-long tune, although it is very pleasantly melodic. It has a sense of building up as it goes along with the gradual inclusion of more instrumentation and then a drum beat.
“Empty” sounds very different to the preceding track and is much rockier, with the music sounding similar to the kind of thing the Police were doing earlier in the decade in places. Although the vocal performance is much nicer to listen to than Sting’s. The electric guitar sound on this track is certainly very atmospheric and the entire song is very nicely produced although not the slick over-production of some of the heavier rock bands, merely a professional sound rather than a ‘dirty’ rock one.
“Hatful of Rain” is probably the most upbeat song on the album, from the opening drum roll to the guitar intro it sounds a lot pacier, but again the lyric can’t help but conjure up images of Britain in the late 1980s, not from anything specific but from the general feel of them and the atmosphere that they create.
The album closes with its best and most famous track, probably the best song Del Amitri have ever produced, certainly one of the best songs of the late 1980s – “Nothing Ever Happens”. The downbeat, lonely, melancholic nature of the song could be considered depressing, but the whole thing is put together so well, so simply that it all comes together magnificently in terms of instrumentation, vocal, lyrics and atmosphere to blend into a classic song.
It was wisely placed at the end of the album so as not to overshadow the other nine tracks contained on it. In this way, it goes to show what a consistently good album “Waking Hours” really is – there is not a single track, in my opinion, that could be considered really poor or as spoiling the album. This is not a record to buy if you’re in need of cheering up or want to get up and dance, but if you want to sit back, relax and enjoy some excellently written and performed music, then I would certainly recommend it.
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.