The Clientele - Best Band Since The Smiths

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DP8ut6vBQuw
live from 2000 "And the Grass Won't Pay No Mind" (Neil Diamond)

they certainly make this sound like a clientele tune

new one!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrG7DghQby8

has a genuinely weird Beatles "White Album" kinda thing going on

seems like it'll be an interesting trip!

yeah, doesn't sound like more of the same... which is cool!

Music for the Age of Miracles was both a surprise and a classic, so I'm quite happy for them to follow it up with a sprawling experimental double album... just bought tickets for the Philly and DC shows!

another new track!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_r9NgWnPYo

Thats really lovely, feeling much better about the lp now.

not totally feeling new song tbh - a little bit the drums, a little bit the recurring guitar “sample” at the top - cool that they are playing with the sound, just didn’t quite gel for me in this instance

― meat and two vdgg (emsworth), Tuesday, 25 April 2023 23:03 (two months ago) link

Revisiting that first new track again and yeah I think it just comes across as a bit too stiff overall. Both the instrumentation and forcing "blue over blue" into that vocal melody contribute to that feeling for me. HOWEVER I don't necessarily dislike it, I guess I'm just trying to analyze why it was feeling a little off.

The Clientele is best when they sound effortless and it did not feel that way. This is also why I was a little turned off by the overstuffed production on the last album.

I'm definitely warming to Dying in may, though still getting a distinct Noel's-posh-cousin-does-a-trip vibration from it that i'm not sure what do with.

Blue over blue is nice enough but has a couple of tics that bother me (the farting fuzz, the baroque breakdown), its unusual for the first taste of a new clientele lp to be anything but flat out perfection, but i'm sure it will be fine in context. Now very excited to hear the record and on board for any eeriness / polite tinkering / scorched earth sonic terrorism in might entail.

out friday! :D

there's... a podcast?
https://shows.acast.com/the-clientele-podcast

We got a promo of the new album in at work which I've played a couple of times. I'm really not feeling it sadly. There's some songs that just don't work (including the first two singles). The nicer more typical Clientele songs just feel like retreads of what they've done before.

I'll stick with it because I love these guys, but my first impression is that this is easily their weakest album and I doubt I'll pick it up.

just came in the mail! haven't listened yet

First spin and I'm liking this a LOT more than the last one.

now that's what I want to hear!

the video was never posted was it... it's fun!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-YpCcy05OA

on first listen this is brilliant! everything I didn't know I needed

the drums!

never thought I'd get radiohead vibes from a clientele record haha

this could be a breakthrough album for them

haha I could live without the beats and any echoes of r*******d but I do really like it on first play and can now happily file my mild dislike of blue over blue as an irrelevance. This isn't going to do their reputation for none more cut glass Englishness any good is it...

worth the wait for Chalk Flowers alone

Liking this on first listen. Idly speculating that it takes a period of months/years to know whether an album with skits/interludes properly gels.

All the positive reactions are encouraging me to spend more time with this. The last album was so instant and is one of my favourite albums of theirs. I'm hoping this one grows on me.

It's funny because the last album ended up being my least favorite! It felt like a (relative) lack of inspired musical ideas with overly busy production garnish to compensate. Like just-OK ice cream base layer with overly rich syrup and sprinkles etc. Ends up being a "bit much" and sort of underwhelming all at once. I'm trying too hard to describe it perfectly and in doing so makes me sound more negative than intended probably... because I still like it! Just not as much as most of the rest of the discography.

New one sounded really cohesive - ambitious but in a way that felt more successful and immersive to me! Really into it.

xpost i my initial view on the last album was relatively negative but after listening to it a few more times over the years i came round to really loving about half the songs.

looking forward to spending time with the new one.

Age of Miracles had like four top-tier Clientele songs... Everyone You Meet, Lunar Days, Falling Asleep, Age of Miracles! Maybe it's time to poll the Clientele?

So far this one seems like a sprawling version of the Ariadne EP (which has the earlier, superior version of Impossible)

I was prepared to hate this based on one of the advance singles and some of what you all were posting (even the complimentary comments had me a little worried). But actually it was pretty good on first listen. It meanders in a way I don't really think other Clientele albums do and I'm not sure how that will feel after multiple listens, but at least the first time through I enjoyed the wax/wane pacing.

Enjoying this also (from a similarly skeptical starting point)… reminds me of Performance somehow - viz hippy-era eclecticism but also the sense of a big rambling house full of different vibes… man…

the last album ended up being my least favorite! It felt like a (relative) lack of inspired musical ideas with overly busy production garnish to compensate

this is too harsh

but I agree with the sentiment

I tried to disclaimer that it sounded harsher than I meant for it to...

Gee, the not-a-song-per-se tracks are frequently quite spiffy.

they've always had good interstitals

missing an i in there somewhere

Yeah, true. This time part of me wants an entire LP along the lines of "My Childhood"/"The Village is Always On Fire" etc. Perhaps in a Julian House sleeve!

I think this is one of those albums where you can Remove one song from an almost perfect album to make it a perfect album
maybe several

but maybe that's why it's great

an album can't be a 10 if it doesn't have skips. means they weren't taking enough risks

― flopson, 8. august 2023 22:43

see also voodoo chili's upcoming treatise "in defense of skips"

The Clientele have a new podcast... https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-clientele-podcast/id1698656005

For no good reason at all this has been one of those in one ear, out the other bands for me, but I'll be seeing them tonight!

I was out of town and missed their dc gig, but 2 folks who I know who attended, enjoyed the gig

Really pleasing set, short and sweet, like one long suite with a bunch of lovely movements (that I immediately forgot as I heard them, lol). Alasdair is an endearingly fussy guitarist, love his refusal to use obvious chords. There was one song where he totally (and recognizably, so intentionally) went all "Marquee Moon." Was there with a friend that knows the group so got to say hi at the end of the night. Nice crowd turnout.

Would love to see them but don't think I'll be able to make any of the European cities

Happy all the same that they are performing and that they're great as always

they missed flyover space, i'd enjoy seeing alisdair verlaine. glad they're goin' around tho

got tickets for some of the east coast shows but couldn't make it (not for unhappy reasons though... I bought a new house and had to move that weekend!)

Looking forward to seeing them in SF on the 20th.

Saw them play in Seattle last night, they were great. They did a long version of Lamplight with the Marquee Moon interlude that Josh mentioned upthread. The (three or four) new songs they played sounded really good. Alasdair mentioned they had not yet played Blue Over Blue without messing it up, but they seemed to get through it without a hitch.

Paris tonight! In a boat on the Seine. I’m looking forward to it a lot.

I was undisapponted, and I was not alone in that. Three encores and some disgruntlement that there wasn’t a fourth. They played “A Picture of Dorian Gray” in the final encore, I haven’t heard them play that one in a very long time.

sounds amazing! I'm sad I missed their US tour recently but I was moving house that week

I have never cared for this band but the new album knocked me out.

they played the House Always Wins!

Did they? I haven’t seen that for a while, glad it’s still in rotation

haha wait weren't you there? in paris?

They didn’t play THAW last night - I’d have noticed, it’s my favourite!

https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/the-clientele/2023/petit-bain-paris-france-3ba33868.html

I was working off this posted setlist but maybe it's just wrong!