Coldest Winter for a Hundred Years

Do I dare say that The Coldest Winter In A Hundred Years is the best Wild Swans album? A band was never big to begin with, put out only two obscure albums, and now reunites 20 years later -- not the most common recipe for success.Fortunately, the Wild Swans always sounded out of time, even in 1988. Their debut  Bringing Home The Ashes  had an old-world, Victorian charm. The lyrics were written with slightly mannered, old-fashioned expressions. The tone was somber, with the devout earnestness of a young student of theology. Frontman Paul Simpson was self-confrontational without the over-emotional self-absorption of more modern-sounding singers. I compared him to a character from a novel by  A.J. Cronin .Now he's back, and it's almost like the past 20 years never happened. Simpson still has that warm voice, though showing a little wear (unfortunately he strains a little on "English Electric Lightning"); he still sings with that classical diction, uses words like "Albion" and shortens "over" as "o'er." The music is vintage eighties jangle-and-chime, spacious and melodious. But it's more than just sound. The Wild Swans' music was never really their strongest point, but this album has the best guitarwork and most detailed composition of their entire career. Note, for example, how the guitar line in "Falling To Bits" now has room to breathe and unfold without getting smothered by the rhythm section, and how it is subtly reinforced by piano closer to the end of the song. Perhaps the music owes its high quality to the presence of two ex- Bunnymen , Will Sergeant on guitar in "Intravenous" (a breezy rush, the closest that this album ever gets to  Space Flower ) and Les Pattinson on bass.The tone of the album uses Bringing Home The Ashes as a model. In fact, it is even darker (more  The Stars Look Down  than Green Years). In 1988, Simpson had religion and general youthful optimism to support himself. Now, he is haunted by nostalgia. True to form, The Wild Swans live in the past. This is common among aging British rockers, and often it's not very interesting -- just see the  Manic Street Preachers'  latest. Like them, Simpson indulges in some sentimentality, at one point listing his  favourite   classic   rock   albums  and imploring, "take me back in time." He's not too thrilled with how things are going these days, openly stating, "my town used to fill my head with wonder / now it fills me with disgust." This part, unfortunately, is a bit low on specifics: he says things like "this town is falling to bits," but the only concrete criticism he expresses of the present is that we've cut down a lot of forests and built shopping malls in their place. I ended up even kind of admiring how he paraphrases William Blake to express his unrestrained contempt, but consumerism is the easiest target for a rock singer. There must be something else that bothers him.But when he turns to the past, he pours out a great deal of descriptive detail, like the images of past glory in "My Town." It is clear that he's honestly trying to somehow reinterpret the past and extract some kind of relevant message from it...and that it's not coming to him. This tension makes "Chloroform" the single greatest Wild Swans song ever. Simpson tries to look back to his ancestors' experience in the two world wars. He acknowledges their heroism and the hardships they faced ("I can't conceive of the things he saw as his friends were blown to pieces"), but these family memories don't give up the expected (hoped-for?) glory -- one of the images coming back to him is, "they shot the boy deserters." Their experiences are so alien to him that it is now very difficult to relate, all he can say is, "and the boots I bought from the vintage shop were torn from off a dead man," but he sings it with ambiguous matter-of-factness. And what about that dreamy out-of-place chorus, "it feels like chloroform"? Maybe it is a sobering reminder of how these titanic experiences are noticeably receding from collective memory, becoming incomprehensible and dulling."Lost At Sea" attempts to deal with death: "it's me, it's your old dad, voyaging out here alone / one moment I'm watching the telly, the next I'm engraved on a stone." The song has a gentle and comforting sound, but it doesn't quite balance out the frightening arbitrariness in the lyrics. The overall tone is not depressing, but there is a sense of trying to maintain control over one's life, and a sense that it isn't going well. Simpson asks, with what sounds more like curiosity than bitterness, "isn't it strange how the time makes these lines on your face?" In light of this, "In Secret" sounds like a sweet plea for warmth...and it's a song about having an illicit affair.In promotional press copy, Simpson claimed to have "unfinished business," and it's true. This is indeed the best Wild Swans album, not only a worthy sequel to Bringing Home The Ashes, but also a counterpoint. It still has that light touch, and is even deeper under the surface.

An incredible, impressive, inspirational return to form, after what ... 20 years away? What's even more remarkable, the Wild Swans sound as good, as fresh, and as vital, as they did when they gave us the classic "Bringing Home The Ashes." If you liked that album, you MUST get this one too. The songs are poetic, reflective, transcendent; simply beautiful, melodic tunes that fill the listener with joy. And the lyrics? More clever and whimsical prose. All the various mentions of names and places and things like "Live at the Witch Trials" leave me with multiple smiles on my face. This album is a sheer pleasure. Every track works for me. Great music by a great band that should be much, much better known in the music world.

After a long layoff, a new Wild Swans album shows up. The production is slightly rougher than their previous releases and that's a good thing. All the songs are solid and heartfelt with many lyrics about a past and fading England. Les Pattinson from Echo and the Bunnymen is on bass throughout the album and Will Sargent appears on a track. Paul Simpson's songs and voice make for a touching album of lost things. One of the best of 2011.

The Wild Swans, at least, the literate Paul Simpson and the meticulous artist Ged Quinn (who provided this album's artwork) will know the painting "The Angelus" by Jean-Francois Millais; which sentimentally draws in oils for us the sound, across the fields, of church bells that symbolise what is holy, that will never change. Some peasants stop their work for the angelus as evening falls. They have been digging potatoes. Faraway by the setting sun you can just about see a church. The chiming jangle of cathedral bells and the dwelling of archangels was never so far away in the music of The Wild Swans.The band always required an English literature student's acquaintance with characters like Saint Sebastian, full of arrows, who makes an appearance again, after all these years, on the artwork for this album painted as a cat. Drake's Armada, Milton and William Blake rub shoulders with new immortals like Johnny Rotten, and Mrs Thatcher; and Robert Wyatt is wheeled in to rhyme with Toxteth Riots. It's a great achievement.Robert Wyatt? "I can still remember the last time we played on Top Gear." The first night it was broadcast June 15, 1969, those were the opening words Wyatt almost sang: for "The Moon in June" with his band Soft Machine. I taped it from a John Peel radio session onto a cheap Ultra reel to reel tape recorder and I played it, and stretched it and rewound it countless times. Was I the only one? This version was never heard of again until it was released on Strange Fruit in 1990. The same song, released soon after, reworked for their LP "Third", was hopeless by comparison.So it was I recorded, more than a decade later, 13th May 1982, on better equipment, the first Wild Swans session with "Thirst", "No Bleeding" and "Enchanted". Using costly Technics cassette decks I edited it so the tracks could be played together; a lot of work. I lent it to one who, by pressing the wrong button on his own machine, erased my only copy of what was priceless to me. The Wild Swans never released those songs on an album. In those days John Peel was taking up my every waking minute. Rather than killing music, home taping was preserving music. I didn't know that the session was finally released in 1989 as Strange Fruit - SFPS 006. I never heard those beautiful songs again for another twenty years.John Peel famously declared that he wanted to hear something he had never heard before. The problem for his listeners was that he played a good deal of what he had found; and it turned out that ninety percent of the nightly offering was, by his listeners and certainly Peel himself, not worthy of being played again. It was therefore necessary, before midnight when "You and the Night and the Music" kicked in, for his frustrated late night lonely heart listeners to tape the two hour programme in its entirety in the often fruitless search for heavenly sounds that one might want to play over and over again. My final technical refinement was to record it all uncut onto a two hour VHS video tape. Then I met my wife, around the time that Mighty Mighty were fading into the wild blue yonder and The Bhundu Boys were singing joyfully into the darkness; and I realised that it all had to stop if I was ever to get a life.Peel had a way of ensuring that the tracks you'd tuned in to record were placed so that your cassette tape would run out in the middle of the track. In order to catch the whole of "Ceremony" by New Order, "Bubblegum" by Mighty Mighty or B Movie's "Remembrance Day" we had to endure some of the most demoralizing fare from roadkill like Pete Hamill. It was part of the subtext of a John Peel show that there were no superstars. If The Wild Swans or The Smiths were in session you'd only hear of it the day before. A song by The Four Johns would receive the same egalitarian praise as "The Air that I breathe" by The Hollies" or "Stay" by Joe Meek's Liverpool band The Crying Shames . Peel however never spoke over the beginning or the end of a track, so there was a chance of being able to catch wonderful music, unsullied, before it was ever released. You could save a fortune. We never knew it then, but with hindsight some of the greatest music was played in those sessions by bands who, when invited to play for Peel, had probably never been in a studio before; but they had certainly been practising. "Facelift, Mousetrap, Backwards and Mousetrap reprise": I remember Peel, reading out those words as the music of Soft Machine faded because with one solitary tape deck, by default, I had no way of erasing them. Unless you recorded it, King Crimson's "Epitaph" would never be heard again. It was said then to be illegal to tape music. Home taping was killing music.So it is that I state my credentials for being able to express my wonder at the way The Wild Swans have not changed in all these years in the wilderness. This music, particularly "English Electric Lightning" celebrates those John Peel days when Bill Nelson's BeBop Deluxe released "Sunburst Finish; The Fall played "Live at the Witch Trials". There is overall, particularly in my favourite track, "Bluebell Woods", the religious and elegiac sadness that always suffused their work that, now those old days have gone, I would have given anything, even my kingdom for, to be assured that this wonderful band would never die. All my kingdom for a moment more.When his agent, Sensier, first saw the picture on Millet's easel, the painter turned to him and asked, "Well, what do you think of it?""It is the Angelus," replied Sensier. "Yes," Millet said with satisfaction. "Can you hear the bells?"

This a classic album with words that bring back memories of Britain, my home for many years. The melodies are superb,(as is the packaging). The Wild Swans are new to me, but they have a touch of Morrissey (without the angst), plus a little Ocean Blue and Lightning Seeds. Don't miss this one (it's much cheaper in the UK, by the way). Wistful songs about the Liverpool area and Britain's cold war jet, The English Electric Lightning indicate the mix of topics you are going to hear. A great album.

With this album The Wild Swans return back to basics. After the excellent but slightly over produced Bringing Home The Ashes and the somewhat disappointing Space Flower. Paul Simpson has gone back to his roots, creating an album very much in the style of Revolutionary Spirit Wild Swans.Not a bad track on the album but standouts have to be Falling To Bits which would not be out of place on Suede's first album, Chloroform, which is classic Wild Swans with a catchy chorus, and My Town with its acidic lyrics which could have come straight from the pen of Paul Heaton.All in all a superb album from a great band that has never got the recognition that they deserve. Not easy to pigeon hole but I would say if your a fan of Echo and the Bunnymen, Teardrop Explodes, Suede, or C86 indie, I don't think you will be disappointed.

Excellent album, came quickly under the circumstances we are all living at the minute, happy with supplier, will use again...

To compare "The Coldest Winter..." with their former album in percentage. It goes like this.70% similar to Bringing Home the ashes20% similar to Space Flowerand 10% .... for added melodic pop perfection.For fans of melodic jangle pop, grab this, you won't be disappointed.For fans of the wild swans, grab this fast before it goes out of prints like their other albums.

Never thought they would fulfill the promise from their early work, but after all this time they did. Maybe the best new wave come-back album ever, they surpass Echo and the Bunnymenand other 80s band with this heartfelt and magnificent album.For lovers of Echo and The Bunnymen, Sophia, The Chameleons, The Sound, The Lotus Eaters, Shack etc

The Wild Swans, at least, the literate Paul Simpson and the meticulous artist Ged Quinn (who provided this album's artwork) will know the painting "The Angelus" by Jean-Francois Millais; which sentimentally draws in oils for us the sound, across the fields, of church bells that symbolise what is holy, that will never change. Some peasants stop their work for the angelus as evening falls. They have been digging potatoes. Faraway by the setting sun you can just about see a church. The chiming jangle of cathedral bells and the dwelling of archangels was never so far away in the music of The Wild Swans.The band always required an English literature student's acquaintance with characters like Saint Sebastian, full of arrows, who makes an appearance again, after all these years, on the artwork for this album painted as a cat. Drake's Armada, Milton and William Blake rub shoulders with new immortals like Johnny Rotten, and Mrs Thatcher; and Robert Wyatt is wheeled in to rhyme with Toxteth Riots. It's a great achievement.Robert Wyatt? "I can still remember the last time we played on Top Gear." The first night it was broadcast June 15, 1969, those were the opening words Wyatt almost sang: for "The Moon in June" with his band Soft Machine. I taped it from a John Peel radio session onto a cheap Ultra reel to reel tape recorder and I played it, and stretched it and rewound it countless times. Was I the only one? This version was never heard of again until it was released on Strange Fruit in 1990. The same song, released soon after, reworked for their LP "Third", was hopeless by comparison.So it was I recorded, more than a decade later, 13th May 1982, on better equipment, the first Wild Swans session with "Thirst", "No Bleeding" and "Enchanted". Using costly Technics cassette decks I edited it so the tracks could be played together; a lot of work. I lent it to one who, by pressing the wrong button on his own machine, erased my only copy of what was priceless to me. The Wild Swans never released those songs on an album. In those days John Peel was taking up my every waking minute. Rather than killing music, home taping was preserving music. I didn't know that the session was finally released in 1989 as Strange Fruit - SFPS 006. I never heard those beautiful songs again for another twenty years.John Peel famously declared that he wanted to hear something he had never heard before. The problem for his listeners was that he played a good deal of what he had found; and it turned out that ninety percent of the nightly offering was, by his listeners and certainly Peel himself, not worthy of being played again. It was therefore necessary, before midnight when "You and the Night and the Music" kicked in, for his frustrated late night lonely heart listeners to tape the two hour programme in its entirety in the often fruitless search for heavenly sounds that one might want to play over and over again. My final technical refinement was to record it all uncut onto a two hour VHS video tape. Then I met my wife, around the time that Mighty Mighty were fading into the wild blue yonder and The Bhundu Boys were singing joyfully into the darkness; and I realised that it all had to stop if I was ever to get a life.Peel had a way of ensuring that the tracks you'd tuned in to record were placed so that your cassette tape would run out in the middle of the track. In order to catch the whole of "Ceremony" by New Order, "Bubblegum" by Mighty Mighty or B Movie's "Remembrance Day" we had to endure some of the most demoralizing fare from roadkill like Pete Hamill. It was part of the subtext of a John Peel show that there were no superstars. If The Wild Swans or The Smiths were in session you'd only hear of it the day before. A song by The Four Johns would receive the same egalitarian praise as "The Air that I breathe" by The Hollies" or "Stay" by Joe Meek's Liverpool band The Crying Shames . Peel however never spoke over the beginning or the end of a track, so there was a chance of being able to catch wonderful music, unsullied, before it was ever released. You could save a fortune. We never knew it then, but with hindsight some of the greatest music was played in those sessions by bands who, when invited to play for Peel, had probably never been in a studio before; but they had certainly been practising. "Facelift, Mousetrap, Backwards and Mousetrap reprise": I remember Peel, reading out those words as the music of Soft Machine faded because with one solitary tape deck, by default, I had no way of erasing them. Unless you recorded it, King Crimson's "Epitaph" would never be heard again. It was said then to be illegal to tape music. Home taping was killing music.So it is that I state my credentials for being able to express my wonder at the way The Wild Swans have not changed in all these years in the wilderness. This music, particularly "English Electric Lightning" celebrates those John Peel days when Bill Nelson's BeBop Deluxe released "Sunburst Finish; The Fall played "Live at the Witch Trials". There is overall, particularly in my favourite track, "Bluebell Woods", the religious and elegiac sadness that always suffused their work that, now those old days have gone, I would have given anything, even my kingdom for, to be assured that this wonderful band would never die. All my kingdom for a moment more.When his agent, Sensier, first saw the picture on Millet's easel, the painter turned to him and asked, "Well, what do you think of it?""It is the Angelus," replied Sensier. "Yes," Millet said with satisfaction. "Can you hear the bells?"