Oh, I say! After the relatively disappointing Absent Friends, Victory For The Comic Muse is The Divine Comedy back to their louche, seductive best. This is as good as it gets.
The opening, ‘To Die A Virgin’ is a hilariously ribald romp, equal parts randy teenager and dandy Casanova, and Hannon is, as ever, possessed of a most wordily naughty charm. “You don’t know how much I need you/The Handy Andies I’ve been through” he sings. It's quintessential The Divine Comedy: sumptuous music framing a smattering of tasteful smut in a song that inhabits the hinterland between Noël Coward sophistication and Carry On coarseness just perfectly.
Not only is Hannon as lyrically acute as ever, but what is especially impressive here is the profound diversity of the Divine Comedy sound. From the countrified twang of ‘Mother Dear’ to the jazz-tinged ‘Diva Lady’, the boys in the band prove themselves musical masters of all trades. If that all sounds fearfully experimental of Mr Hannon, well, it isn’t, and there's much here that will sate even the most recalcitrant devotees of Liberation and Promenade.
The cover of The Associates' ‘Party Fears Two’ is a giddy delight, delivering deliriously cascading piano and a vocal that ascends to chandelier-shattering heights at its crescendo. Meanwhile, the irrepressibly ornate pop of ‘Arthur C. Clarke’s Mysterious World’ finds our hero bemused and rendered clumsy by the opposite sex. The mournful epic ‘A Lady Of A Certain Age’ sees Hannon dispense with the persona of the woman-ravishing roué to relate this tale of a life and love wasted, which is direct, affecting and kinda magical.
It’s all here, then. Victory For The Comic Muse is a triumph. Savour it.