The Middle East made a hell of a splash in 2009, when they released a collection of songs that they themselves were reluctant to call their debut album. The independently-released eight-track LP, known as The Recordings Of The Middle East, saw the wistful Queenslanders gig their way up to becoming the new darlings of ambient folk, adored by fans of Fleet Foxes, Band of Horses, and Local Natives.
These tracks were hardly designed to soundtrack a Dulux advert, but there was a jolly, triumphant flow to the songs that allowed the Aussies to avoid making it onto anyone’s Break-Up playlist. Nowadays, the Middle East sound is serving a very different purpose. As song titles like ‘Black Death 1349’ suggest, I Want That You Are Always Happy is a decidedly unhappy piece of work.
The Middle East’s first (proper) album is solemn, pious and that most unfashionable of words, religious. Yes, the late JC is name-dropped on several tunes, including dreamy and spirited single ‘Jesus Came To My Birthday Party’, but it’s difficult to ascertain what, if anything, the Middle East are trying to say about religion. In fact, with perplexing lines like “Jesus, you’re a fire in my foreskin everyday”, I’m pretty sure they’re happy to leave the listener totally bewildered.
Still, there’s an ample amount of spooky guitars, cascading piano, mournful strings and happily misplaced horns to fawn over. Rohin Jones and Jordan Ireland share lead vocals throughout and are timid and expressive, respectively. ‘Months’ has a woozy, James Taylor-esque laziness to it, while ‘Sydney To Newcastle’ is a truly timeless instrumental piano tune, interrupted briefly by the voice of a railway announcer muffled over a loudspeaker.
The free-flowing thrash at the climax of ‘Mount Morgan’ hints that, for all their murky melancholy, there’s heavier things in The Middle East’s repertoire, and later, the album’s hidden track (hey, remember those?) is a real surprise – a muddled, horn-heavy experiment that feels more like jazz fusion than folk.
While there’s nary a weak tune on here, I Want That You Are Always Happy is painfully self-indulgent, clocking in at over an hour, with a handful of songs trickling unnecessarily over the five-minute mark. In spite of the Middle East’s penchant for a winding epic, the album has been sewn together with remarkable restraint, and it rarely feels like seven people are making the noise.
It may be short on laughs, but for all its moments of woe, I Want That You Are Always Happy is almost impossible not to love.