I wonder sometimes what World Party must sound like
to sometime who *didn’t* grow up in the 60s and 70s. Vaguely cool
and retro, I suppose. Melodically sophisticated, a bit cerebral,
and with production that somehow manages to come off as both
organic and densely layered.
For those of us who were aborning around the time
John first met Paul, however, a listen to World Party is like an
instant musical flashback. Hardly a track goes by that you don’t
think “That sounds a little bit like________” (insert name of
memorable 1965-69 melodic rock song, preferably by the Beatles).
That might be a slam if the songs were second-rate, but they
aren’t. World Party mastermind Karl Wallinger is a musical
craftsman of the first order — he just happens to have a sound he
likes, and it’s one that’s intensely familiar to those of us of a
certain age.
World Party came to fruition in 1986 as a vehicle for
Wallinger’s solo work after he quit his position as keyboard player
for the Mike Scott-led Waterboys. A
multi-instrumentalist-singer-songwriter-producer, Wallinger brought
in other players to fill out the World Party sound as needed,
relying most frequently over the years on the tasteful, chameleonic
guitar work of Dave Catlin-Birch.
World Party’s fifth studio album Dumbing Up
was first released in 2000 under difficult circumstances; Wallinger
suffered an aneurysm soon after its release and it was essentially
never promoted. This year’s re-release on his own Seaview label has
a reshuffled track order, remastered sound, two new tracks and a
bonus DVD with over two hours of material, including a treasure
trove of WP music videos.
Newly-ensconced album opener “Another Thousand Years”
has solid energy and real sweep to it, finding a happy medium
between the sweet melodic rock of Revolver and the big-sky
punch of Cream. Its second cousin is “Til I Got You,” a sunny pop
confection with ear-candy layered harmonies, something that John,
Paul and Brian Wilson might have written for Rubber
Soul.
Giving up his Beatles fetish for a few minutes,
Wallinger goes Dylan on you with “Who Are You?”, a
modern-culture-skewering rant that mocks everything it touches with
near-lethal acidity. He isn’t entirely stuck in the late 60s,
though. “Here Comes The Future” finds Wallinger layering bells and
falsetto harmonies over a funk beat and muted, stabbing guitar
lines, just like The Artist Whose Name We Couldn’t Pronounce In The
Nineties — who is of course himself probably the all-time leader
in retro-sound-thievery.
A mid-disc highlight is “I Thought You Were A Spy,”
an essentially acoustic number that nonetheless builds up a nice
head of steam toward the finish, and features Wallinger doing such
a good Mick on the vocals that I feared for a minute he might
accidentally break into a chorus of “Wild Horses.” Late in the
game, the Dylan influence returns with the tongue-in-cheek wordplay
of “You’re A Hurricane, I’m A Caravan.”
Enough of spot-the-influence, though. Wallinger
writes original songs with a distinct voice, one that strikes a
smart, clear-eyed balance between cynicism and belief, idealism and
disgust. As the album title backhandedly acknowledges, Wallinger’s
lyrics invariably both entertain and challenge, which speaks well
of his choice to keep the music feeling somewhat familiar and
accessible.
It’s very much too bad this album didn’t get a decent
shot upon its first release six years ago. Let’s not let that
happen again, shall we?
