Admiral Fallow

I'm always a little apprehensive when a band is able to create a debut album so immense and impactive, you can barely fathom how they'll ever be able to follow it up with a careers worth of progressively establishing follow up albums without going stir crazy or self destructing. It's like painting the Sistine Chapel on your first day as a painters apprentice, stepping back to admire your work, then uttering the immortal 'bugger!' as the sudden realisation that you've shafted yourself by setting the bar too high becomes tangibly apparent.

So it's sentimental and at some points a little bright-eyed and naïve, but I'm sure this will get crushed after a few years of repeated disappointments and crushing despair. That'll make one hell of a second album!

Formerly doing business under the name Brother Louis Collective, Admiral Fallow are fronted by the strongly accented Scot Louis Abbott. His emphatic lyricism and tender vocals are the showpiece to an eclectic band of woodwind and string instruments on top of your conventional indie fair.

From the first notes of clarinet on the quivering fanfare opening track “Dead Against Smoking”, you're hooked by the melody-laden orchestral strings and supporting delicate harmonies of bandmate Sarah Hayes, all of which meld with a fusion only comparable with a full orchestral symphony while second track and recent single “Squealing Pigs” is a more optimistic, stomping hoedown of a track culminating in a screeching parlay of strings and jazzy horns. Think Munford and Sons with more sincerity and tenderness.

“Subbuteo” is a recollection of childhood mischief set to a simple drum beat and woodwind that escalates to a dramatic crescendo as so often many of the tracks do. The ability that so many of these tracks have of going from soft, barely sung lullabies to big band style outro's is a credit to the bands ability and the gradual build up of emotion allows for the story to fully leave it's mark on you long after it has finished. “Delivered” did just this, though unusually without the firecracker ending and barely three minutes long. A beautifully refrained piece with Abbott's howls of “This is your end” sending shivers down your spine and leaving a lump in your throat.

Admiral Fallow cite influences from Elbow, Rufus Wainwright and Tom Waits. It's all in there somewhere. The best of all of it combined to to create something anthemic yet understated. Big and bold, but avoiding theatrical cheese. Every note serves a purpose and has its place, nothing is wasted and nothing is missed. An astounding first album, but the question still remains, what do you do after you've painted the Sistine Chapel?