Midlake

Tue 2nd Feb, 2010 in Features

It has been a long stretch – three years in fact – since Denton (that’s in Texas folks) band Midlake have made much noise since their breakthrough album The Trials Of Van Occupanther.

You would remember tunes such as Roscoe and Head Home harking back to the 1970s echoes of Fleetwood Mac and America, or even The Eagles. The album put the band on the map – and according to some critics, Midlake had made one of the greatest records in the history of American rock music.

How do you follow up an album of such luminance? The answer is, you don’t, says guitarist Eric Pulido. “Any pressure we felt was just really pressure we put on ourselves to make a great record in every way. Some things are just subjective, so the pressure is really that every time we make an album we want it to be something we would listen to in 10 years and be proud of, and if we can’t do that then we may as well hang it up and quit.”

Pulido is of course talking about the latest offering and third album from Midlake The Courage Of Others – a slower, dreamier and darker record that requires attentive ears to truly soak in the deeper messages hidden under the shroud of delicate vocal harmonies, exquisite guitars, drums, bass and medieval flutes (nods to Ian Anderson ). Everything about the record is old-world; from the warm analogue palette of the music to the album artwork, which sees the band wearing pagan-type robes.

If anything, the album clocks back to earlier late – œ60s influences, shifting away from the aesthetic of their last record. It incorporates the grunge of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Neil Young and the melodic acoustic rituals of Jethro Tull or Fairport Convention.

“We kind of wear our influences on our sleeve and it’s not a contrived thing,” says Pulido. “This is the music that’s been moving us and that we’ve been listening to. We’re pretty sensitive about that and really get immersed into whatever sound is moving us at that time.”

Self-produced by the band and with the guidance of friends (including film maker Jason Lee ) and their label manager Simon Raymonde, the courage has really been all theirs to perfect something honest and independent from outside hands.

The album works best as a complete listening experience from start to finish; in its story telling and often downbeat mood. Dense pastoral imagery and introspective lyrics raise deep topics, resonating with sincerity from Smith’s pensive and composed vocals, such as in The Acts Of Man: “When all that grows starts to fade, starts to crumble, oh let me inside.” Often the record seems to speak of violations to the earth or an uncertain future.

“I can’t speak on the lyrics as much as Tim of course but I know there is a very nature type of element to a lot of the tunes,” Pulido explains. “It’s not a thing of worshipping nature or that sort of thing but I think it works as a good metaphor in a lot of ways.

“All the songs that are on this album are in a minor key and combined with it being a little bit of a slower pace it automatically, regardless of what you’re be singing about, gives it more of a melancholic or heavier type of feeling. It wasn’t a conscious decision but it was just where it was going.”

So how does a band from Texas end up inhabiting the retro pagan imagery and musical spirit of bands from the late – œ60s? Writer and frontman Tim Smith once termed the mystical feel of Midlake’s music as – œfair maiden’.

“I think the fair maiden renaissance feel all seems to be reminiscent of that era and the imagery that goes along with the British folk scene [of the 1960s],” elaborates Pulido. “I think it’s something that we kind of embrace in a way as well. We wouldn’t necessarily dance around a fire playing lutes with feathers in our hair, but there is something romantic about that time and it’s something we embody in our own way.”

“It was a time that everybody was in some way affected by, because it was just such a classic era of music. I think musically there’s a ton of stuff that have influenced us over the years and of course we wore that on our shoulders with The Trials Of Van Occupanther, and now with this one, although it’s a slightly different genre.”

Australians can also look forward to experiencing the album live when the band venture to our shores later in the year. “I know we’re going to be there in July for the Splendour In The Grass festival,” Pulido reveals. “I think we’re going to be there around that time and do some dates surrounding that in Australia. I love it over there. We’ve only been there once but it was in the summer time and it was paradise.”

The Courage Of Others is out now on Speak N Spell Music.