Friday, July 12, 2013

“Kerou’s Lament” by Ellery James Roberts – A Song Review

     As we noted in a March 3, 2013 post and then repeated on June 6, the song “We Bros” by WU LYF is one of our favorite in-concert songs. Typically, an attendee gauges the value of a concert on the overall performance by the headlining band, or by the combination of the headliner and supporting band (or bands). But the WU LYF experience was different. The band was solid throughout its setlist. However, if they had forgotten the words or been off-key in every other song, it would have been a memorable concert because they “nailed” “We Bros.”
     WU LYF may be history. The frontman, Ellery James Roberts, has announced as much. We’re not sure if the band had the critical mass required to even qualify as a flash-in-the-pan group (at least in the U.S.). Maybe the better comparison is that WU LYF was a grease-spark-in-the-pan group. Regardless, we’re happy that, on one night, we were near the pyrotechnic event.

     Ellery James Roberts released a song earlier in 2013, and it finally hit SoundCloud. The song is “Kerou’s Lament.” It is undeniably Roberts. If you’re a person who needs to understand the lyrics of a song, stop reading here and move on. With Roberts’ style of singing, it is clear that there are words, but less clear about the presence of sentence structure. Actually, this is also Roberts’ style of talking. While with WU LYF, he would speak to the audience between songs, and would assume that at least one person could understand what was being said.
     “Kerou’s Lament” is different than the WU LYF songs. It has a majesty to it, with the use of a horn section after one minute (2013 is the “Year of the Trumpet” in Indie music) and with a choir after another minute. Roberts’ voice is forceful and emotion-filled.
    Oddly, although Roberts hales from the UK, he setup his SoundCloud page to identify Vatican City, he included the Star of David as the letter "O" in the song title, and he included the Japanese characters 犠牲, which translates to “sacrifice.”

      “Kerou’s Lament” by Ellery James Roberts

No comments:

Post a Comment