The Clientele - Best Band Since The Smiths

Lunar Days is a beauty

this is rather lovely from, reminiscent of the adriane ep:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=8&v=s7szaOJnPYI

new track (everything you see tonight is different from itself) is fantastic

my copy shipped a few days ago, can't wait to hear the whole album!

New album streaming on NPR:

http://www.npr.org/2017/09/18/550698416/first-listen-the-clientele-music-for-the-age-of-miracles

Gonna wait until I get my vinyl copy because I'm seasonal like that.

When you read been readin about an album, and are anxious just to the streaming stage, that's where I been at. Psyched to listen later tonight.

Ha "just to get to"

album is fantastic

it's by some distance my favourite clientele album

Everyone you meet is wonderful

it's really beautiful!

Like it a lot lot.

It's very, very good.

"Everything You See Tonight Is Different From Itself" is like a whole album in six minutes — really fantastic.
coming around to the (weird) idea that this might be their best album.

good interview over here: http://www.aquariumdrunkard.com/2017/09/19/the-clientele-the-aquarium-drunkard-interview/

I haven't listened to it yet (came in the mail this morning!) but it's shocking to imagine a better album than Strange Geometry so I'm excited and nervous.

i know! i don't know, it might be that a band this deep into their career has no business making an album as great as Music for the Age of Miracles.

Interesting interview!

We’ve always had the ambition, but we’re always been too poor and too impatient to do it in the way we wanted to. I feel like we’re just starting that journey, really. I feel like we can do a lot more in terms of electronic beats and a lot more in terms of instrumental textures. It really sets you free, it’s like having a whole different palette of colors to use. I said I’d only do another Clientele record if we grew. We couldn’t keep on making Bonfires on the Heath indefinitely. We had to break through and do something else. We were actually able to.

On first listen, the electronic beats and other new production touches were exactly what I liked least about it. Great album overall, though!

i want to see these guys live again. I saw them maybe 9-10 years ago. Beach House was opening for them!

I remember feeling the same way about God Save the Clientele-- weren't there banjos or something else "adventurous" on there? :/

xpost

think there's pedal steel on that one.
Not like they've gone and made an "electronic" album by any stretch here, everything is subtly/smoothly incorporated to my ears.

Beautiful on first listen. They've managed to broaden the sonic landscapes while remaining rooted in classic Clientele tunes.

This album is kind of perfect isn't it? It's everything that's great about them but with a few new surprises (mainly the scope of instruments they've used). I can't stop listening to it. They've timed the released brilliantly too.

Falling Asleep is like a Lamplight-level masterpiece, I can listen to it on repeat for ages. Especially the album version that has an extra couple of minutes of outro!

this album
rocks very well
much Clientele

This is a pair of old slacks, slipped on for a lazy Sunday afternoon.
:'(

Apropo response from a 2015 interview with Alasdair MacLean:

We’ve talked about the sound and atmosphere you create as a band and you’ve mentioned that with each album you’re trying to refine that sound and get at the essence of it. Some critics have a tendency to accuse acts of rehashing old songs. What’s your opinion on that?

I think that I completely understand why people would say that about The Clientele, as they’re viewing us in 2015 as a Rock ‘n’ Roll band. The kind of rock band that has to focus on reinvention, this Miles Davis or Picasso styled reinvention. But in 2015, Rock ‘n’ Roll bands don’t mean anything and The Clientele isn’t one; they’re an art project. Again I know that sounds aggressively pretentious.

What it is it’s a refinement of a certain idea and it’s something that’s lasted a couple of decades and a lot of people have contributed to it. So you shouldn’t expect a Kid A from us or a Screamadelica. That’s all bullshit now anyway. I don’t think it matters now, I don’t think it has any meaning anymore. What we’re doing is just rumbling on with this art project that’s been going on since the ’90s.

Our whole aim and our whole methodology is separate from what they’re looking at, what their expectations are. We don’t have that idea of the difficult third album, that’s foreign to what we do.

oops spelled apropos wrong

that's a great response

It's so rare you hear an actually interesting answer from someone in a band

i was listening to the sassoon lyric and i finally looked to refresh how and who and why i knew this... ohhh, yeah. that was really moving actually.

OK the reason I'm not on board with the assessments upthread that this is their best album is that the compositions feel a bit bloated. Just a bit overthought imo. Cynical read is that they're compensating for otherwise slightly less inspired melodies...

Still, I love it. The Clientele is my favorite band. Just looking at it in comparison the the rest of their catalog.

New album is very good but it's not their best.

are we ready for an album poll?

Ready! It's the perfect time of year to back through their albums again.

we can poll the greatest comp too!

ok then. i'll put up the album poll this weekend. great idea to poll the greatest hit comp as well.

Strange POLLometry ...

I Had to POLL This

God POLL The Clientele

We can POLL together

POLLiceman getting lost

POLLcelain

POLLing time and money doesn't mean a thing

Poll is up. Very excited to see how many voters and what is the consensus view. Have to say that I forgot about The Minotaur... don't think that was their best effort. I only included full length albums.

Minotaur starts well but has a drop in quality a few tracks in iirc, weird EP but ofc nice that they were trying something new

it's that time of year

They were very good the other week. No new songs on the night but I believe there are some goodies in the works.

God Save The Clientele is the fourth studio album by British indiepop band The Clientele. Recorded in Nashville, Tennessee, it broadens the band's palette through the use of pedal steel and slide guitar.

wow, never knew this

anyway:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxaPeBJ0oa8

I'd love to see them again