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Lonely Boy and Other Tragedies
Lonely Boy and Other Tragedies
Filthy Little Angels
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Article
written by James S
Apr 18, 2007.
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With former bandmate Darren Hayman currently creating more records than Yelena Isinbayeva, Antony Harding seems determined to challenge him - a bit like Svetlana Feofanova then. The one-time Hefner drummer turned supercute solo artist in his own right has eschewed his usual Ant moniker for this latest release, which sees him team up with young Norwegian poet Eivind Kirkeby.
Back in 2003, Kirkeby sent Ant some poetry that he felt would make good songs, and Ant then wrote and recorded music for seven of them. Four years on, the result of that Postal Service-style arrangement can finally be heard. It may be a different way of working for Ant but the results are very familiar. His voice, as always, is as soft as a newborn kitten rolling in feathers on a velvet pillow, and the backing is provided by his trademark acoustic strumming and melancholy keyboards.
And like Ant’s solo work, for the most part it’s bloody lovely. Girls And Love jaunts along with some neat repetition in its lyrical themes towards an unashamedly uncool conclusion (“but I can never get enough of comic books“), whilst the Between The Lines floats along on a fragile combination of xylophone and wooden percussion. Best of all though, is the suitably shanty-ish Seaside Sorrow which manages to be heartbreaking, folky and unwittingly reminiscent of The Kinks’ Dedicated Follower of Fashion all at once.
There are a few faults to pick too, however. Any harder heart than mine (and that’s probably most of you) might find the title track unforgivably wimpy and self-pitying, and the transition from the moody moog intro into the guitar on World’s Resumé is clunky and awkward, and the lyrical reference to ’tigermilk’ is just too knowingly twee.
Like Darren Hayman, Ant has a style that works wonders for him and his devoted little following though, so if you’ve ever been a lonely boy (or girl) you should definitely hunt this record down. It would be an other tragedy not to, quite frankly.
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