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It’s been
a tough couple of months for music: the birth of 2008 heralded the integration of pop Stepford Wife Madonna into the Rock
’n’ Roll Hall of Fame and the rumored formation of the insufferable Adele’s so-called "Brit-school Supergroup."
To top it all off, Boyzone are reforming.
However, there yet remains a shred of light in this musical quagmire; could
it be that our last hope for decent tuneage is to be found in a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed two-man band from South West London
called Carmelite? Their fourth and newest effort, Perfume & Alcohol, certainly suggests that Carmelite could indeed be
the saviours of all that is good and holy in what we’ve come to call unsigned music.
Laurence Owen and Ryan Michael
have come a long way from the early stumblings of the ambitious Korova Milkbar, their first album ("Charades") an earnest
if over-reaching attempt at a progressive concept album involving a schizophrenic and a miscarriage of justice (stay with
me, reader – you were young once too.)
But Carmelite have grown into themselves considerably since those halcyon
days, and Perfume & Alcohol is a deeply mature set of songs – more accessible than Charades and more commercial
than 2007’s Miracle Play (a raindrops-and-whiskey cabaret album in three parts.)
Michael provides the slinky
low-end of the bass with a confidence and alarming skill that seems at odds with his tender years. At Carmelite’s helm
is Owen, a bright young thing of just nineteen with a distinctive lyrical style, reminiscent of the self-deprecating poetic
balladry associated with Billy Bragg or Nick Cave.
Perfume
& Alcohol is released on no major label, and has received little or no publicity – the EP’s manufacture and
production has a homegrown, family feel, with press-shots and reviews all provided by friends and relatives (Owen himself
maintains the band’s website and keeps track of online orders.) But despite the lack of funding meaning that Carmelite
have paid for this EP’s manufacture entirely out of their own pockets, Perfume & Alcohol looks to be one of the
brightest new gems in London’s crown, a rare treasure hidden under conveyor-belt acts such as the Pigeon Detectives
and the Kooks.
Make A Stand is a sparse but fierce track, driven by aggressive acoustic guitars, Michael’s impressive
noodling and Owen’s trademark crystalline vocal – ranging from the heart-splicingly tender to the cold and world-weary
as he sings of an impossible love. The Sailor’s Girl (Abandon Ship) is a joyfully tongue in cheek ode to sex, rife with
the kind of suggestive nautical references ("We tossed and turned/we entered by the stern") to make Neil Hannon slap his thigh
and exclaim "Attaboys!" However, perhaps the EP’s most beautiful track (and arguably the band’s finest to date)
is the sublime A Way to Spend a Day, a sorrow-tinged song on a par with Anarchy Dove (a bittersweet love/hate song from Carmelite’s
previous release, Miracle Play.)
In Behind the Line, our brave boys take a turn for the sinister, employing the use
of ominous violins to spin a tale of self-doubt ("I don’t go out in daylight/it irritates my skin"), whilst the final
track on this EP is the epic Hammering Hand, an ’ancient song’ in which Carmelite’s lyrics echo back slightly
to their Korova Milkbar days. You’re breathless by the end, and gagging for more.
Carmelite are self-confessed
weirdoes – an entirely different breed to the fluorescent Hoxtonites and the trilby-wearing Libertines offspring that
may have chanced upon a guitar or Casio keyboard and squeezed a single out of it. No, Carmelite are in a league of their own.
One is the finest philosophy student in the country – the other obsesses over Ute Lemper and dons a ’rat-hat’
when they perform. They take their coffee black, and their Star Wars vintage. They’ve got a framed picture of Tom Waits
onstage with them, and boy does he look proud. They’re back to save the universe.
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