The Fabulists - Dog Violets
The Fabulists are a five piece band from London and they are certainly unique. Having no guitarists only relying on keyboards and piano accompanied with a bass and a saxophone, the band's second album 'Dog Violets' is certainly a musical soundscape. It is an album which almost floats along through the ten tracks telling stories as they go. Undeniably this could work as pieces from the next Andrew Lloyd Weber musical! There is something defiantly theatrical about the songs especially with the story telling ballad of first track 'Moon Valley'. Lyrically these songs out tell themselves; stories of a couple on the run and the introduction of many strange named characters. Unfortunately the vocals by lead singer, Hermoine Love are quite weak in comparison to the extrovert instrumentals of the music, but it is evident that the main focus of The Fabulists is the emotion of the words and the landscapes they portray.
This is an album that definitely oozes originality and is certainly unlike anything in the charts today and so it is quite a refreshing change. However, there is a distinct lack of standout songs and rather the whole thirty nine minutes is very theatrical and actually would not be at all out of place in London's West End. With the soothing sounds of 'Lullaby' carving out the dramatic landscapes and the story telling nature of 'La Rochelle'; listening to it, it is easy to picture the stories being played out in front of you.
The Fabulists are without doubt musically talented and incredibly imaginative; they are definitely a band who are well learned in playing music and the production is very very polished with each track mastered in the studio for a long period. However whilst it enlightens the imagination, I feel what is missing is the grand stage show to fit these tracks; sounding as if it is directly from the musical score of a theatre production the lyrical tales are certainly full of emotion and remembrance. 'Dog Violets' is an album which is a storyteller and is brilliantly mastered at that. If however you are not a fan of West End musical scores, perhaps one to avoid!