Having recently become obsessed by The Arcade Fire’s Funeral, in all its glorious furious ecstasy (nothing bar ‘Neighbourhood #1’ has been in my head for a month), I had some difficulty adjusting when I Am Kloot arrived in the house. You may not know them; they are low-key and lugubrious, like a Mancunian Lambchop, or Badly Drawn Boy with scruffier hats. They’re not exactly Wagner. They’re wonderful.
The song at the heart of Gods And Monsters, the one that reminds you that serious emotion is usually in the least obvious place and the one that wins you over, is ‘Ashtray’. Halfway through the album and a couple of verses long, if you nip to the next room to feed the cat you'll miss it, but it’s in here that Johnny Bramwell whispers “I do believe that something somewhere sent me to you/Astray/And the bold raging flame of your heart is making me stay”.
Gods And Monsters is a well-constructed album of contrasts, from ‘Astray’ and the lovely, loping ‘Over My Shoulder’ to ‘Sand And Glue’; the onatomapoeic harshness of the latter arriving after the lush chimes and piano arpeggios of ‘Hong Kong Lullaby’. The purulent imagery of ‘Dead Men’s Cigarettes’' “We smoke dead men’s cigarettes/And we choke on bitter black regrets” precedes the empathy and heart-lifting melody of ‘Coincidence’. And as for ‘Avenue Of Hope’; I’m not sure where it fits in, but it's exotic. It has torch-song trumpet, and this line: “You’re like the clouds in my home town/You just grow fat and hang around/And your days stretch out beneath the sun”.
It’s not far from Brel (a Bolton Brel); it has the same sense of worldliness, and ennui, and indefatigable optimism; and the same lack of contradiction between these that takes a truckload of hope and skill and experience to pull off. It has, then, a cheering ambiguity that fits right in with the aesthetic of Gods And Monsters; a quiet, complex record confident enough to confuse you, and to hide great things where you might not hear them. Nice to be treated like a sentient being for a change.