Music Banter

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ArdentJohn are a five-piece outfit who have been kicking around in Scotland for the last few years, and have made a bit of a name for themselves locally, without ever really exploding into national consciousness. I guess these days, you’d call them folk rock. Back in the day, of course, we’d call them ‘a bit like Travis.’

Their first release, ‘Legoland Towns / The Power Of Panic’ came out in 2006, and at the time it got some good reviews in the local press, but then, well, not much. The band just plodded on. And that’s kind of what you’d expect, listening to their music. There’s nothing inherently sweeping or dramatic about them. They’re just- ambling along, quite nicely, but without anything particularly going on.

If I was to describe this album in one word, I guess that I would pick ‘tasteful.’ That’s not a bad thing, not at all. Tasteful curtains, tasteful ties, tasteful wallpaper, tasteful floral tributes on the grave of a recently deceased member of parliment who died cycling through London traffic (please, Cameron, just fall off that bike of yours and under a white van, that’ll connect you with the working classes you smug thumb-faced git!)- all of these are good things.

Tasteful music, though? Not sure I’m on board with that. Music should at the very least aspire to grab your attention.

Quiet music? Fair enough. Peaceful music? ok. Ambient music, even? I’m down with that- I spent a lot of my teenage years dropping off to Brian Eno’s ‘Music for Airports,’ and it’s wonderful in its place. The problem here, however, is that Ardentjohn have somehow managed to make background music, whilst still ostensibly wanting you to actually listen to them.

It’s fairly reminiscent of a bunch of different things- ‘Colours of the day’ sounds like something American Music Club would have put together, ‘Follow Me’ sounds a bit like Tom Macrae, and the whole thing, as I’ve already said, sounds like Travis. It also sounds a bit like Sabai, a band I was in a while back in Edinburgh who did similar things with a violin and electric guitar. Oh, the glory! Oh, the rivalry! It could have been us! Well, no it couldn’t, but I digress.

The problem is that there isn’t anything to grip you about this band’s music. To use American Music Club as a comparison, whilst the background music is similarly understated, what makes it work is the immediacy of Mark Eitzel’s voice. In a similar way, one of my favourite lost bands, The Unbelievable Truth, highlighted their singer Andy Yorke’s pure voice (slightly better than his more famous brother, I always thought, though I’m aware that’s a minority opinion) through the space in their music. That’s lacking here, to me.

Ardentjohn’s singer, Keiron Mason, is good enough in his quiet way- his voice has a certain quiet yearning quality to it, but it doesn’t really grab you. It’s competent enough to not be gauche like, say, Stuart Murdoch of Belle and Sebastian, but there’s nothing distinctive about it. It just sounds- nice. Warm.

Ok.

I don’t want ok. That just isn’t enough for me.

Now don’t get me wrong, Ardentjohn are sometimes pretty good. ‘Where All Paths Lead’ is a good song, as is ‘Home.’ ‘One Step Behind’ is pretty cool, too- it aims for Belle and Sebastian and kind of hits Maximo Park. Still, there’s nothing urgent about them- you can’t quite bring yourself to care that much, or to feel any particular emotions when listening to their music. Maybe a bit warm and cozy?

Not much more than that.