Alex Seel – Spell on a Tin Drum
Self Released – 17 May 2019
Londoner Alex Seel‘s latest LP certainly does not sound like a project written in a caravan in remote west Ireland and recorded under a bed back in London. The songs are meticulously crafted and the instrumentation is well thought out, never letting anything drown out Seel’s soft vocals and excellent guitar playing. Indeed, opener ‘Take this Guitar’, with a double-tracked acoustic line adding subtle Spanish flavour to the piece, waits until the second verse before a soft violin part considerately enters the mix. The strings do swell slightly as the song develops, but the finger-picked line, something Alex is undoubtedly adept at, remains in the fore with his voice. The vocal is uncannily similar to Steve Forbert from Jackrabbit Slim days in its gentle sweetness and this song is reminiscent of ‘Make it all so Real’, the best song from that album, but I could also detect welcome hints of Steve Tilston‘s work in the playing and singing.
Spell on a Tin Drum is Seel’s second full-length album and his first release since 2017’s well-regarded Circles EP, and it is a short (thirty-one minutes), sharp and broad-minded set of songs that, while all building on that acoustic guitar core, certainly enjoy adding to the musical palette throughout. Take the deep brass notes that introduce ‘Grass is Greener’ as a kind of old fashioned jazz waltz; you would think it is all a bit much, but the production is too sharp to overdo the key vocal line, here having a hint of Paul McCartney about it. The acoustic is still audible of course, and it keeps the song grounded with a piano refrain backing it, but the silky trumpet lines really lift this song and give it a feeling of romance and chamber grandeur which is a lot of fun. It is a nicely placed song too, coming in after ‘Practical Mind’, a far slighter piece, with Seel playing unaccompanied, but one of quiet beauty (admittedly, I do always favour an underdog). It is a simply structured song, with unpretentious playing and it is in and out within just after two and a half minutes, but the track order is effective, with ‘Eyes Wider Than’, an upbeat and more traditional pop song, coming before it.
More proof of the range of styles that Seel explores here while remaining in singer-songwriter territory comes in the shape of ‘Blue Sky in our Hands’, an altogether more proggy effort, with an unexpected Pink Floyd flavour. The decision works well partly because of the nuances of Seel’s vocals, the cleanliness of which suit the more disparate nature of this arrangement and it makes for an album highlight and a bold song to put as the centrepiece. And again the set list is essential here in that the following track is another solo piece, with Seel displaying more of his acoustic picking skills in an intricate part. ‘The River’ is short and spare, which, as well as being appropriate to the serene subject matter, is as satisfying in its own way as the more diverse arrangements explored on ‘Grass is Greener’ and ‘Blue Sky’. It is a sibling of ‘Practical Mind’ and as strong as that piece, with them both working beautifully as little clean nuggets in the mix.
Elsewhere, ‘Before the Sun Goes Down’ begins with brushed drums and a deliberately restrained and cyclical guitar part that seems happy to nestle a step back from the microphone. The lightly distorted electric guitar that cameos here is also effective in giving the song a shot of something slightly more dangerous that contrasts the ‘come on meet me before the sun goes down’ lyrical refrain. But it is the percussion running through this song that really delights, especially alongside the acoustic guitar, which dances around more towards the end. Lead single ‘Satellites’ is a far more straight forward affair, with strummed guitar backing an innocent song laying down a simple message of enduring love in a crazy world through neat and sharp song writing.
Unexpectedly, the album ends with a solo guitar instrumental song in ‘Quietus’. I love how this piece contrasts the songs that have come before and strips everything back, bringing things to a close with the most modest of tools in the acoustic guitar. Here I can really hear the influence of Bert Jansch and John Renbourn and the comparisons are justified. Although the playing is again unpretentious and understated, the notes are very clear and sharp and the melody and mood of the piece is perfectly pitched. In a way, it is the strongest track on Tin Drum, in that it uses the simplest of effects – a string bend here and a hammer-on there – to create a beautiful and quite gripping mini-drama. It is a cheeky teaser of a tune too; Seel just about starts to get into a groove with a bright new melody after almost bringing things to a halt, when the song begins to fade, ending the album by leaving us wondering where the next part was heading. Clever stuff indeed, and probably a very healthy place to leave a listener.
Alex Seel is clearly a musician who loves voice and guitar music and is more than able to craft an excellent album using those tools, but he also is an experimenter and happy to put meat on the bones of his songs. And that is done very skilfully on Spell on a Tin Drum, with no elements tripping over themselves or anything else. Indeed, what impresses and resonates most is how these nine songs all hang together to create a satisfying whole. It is confident work and a lesson in meticulous craftsmanship resulting in a concise and lean set of songs that are bursting with creative ideas and performed with the utmost care and ability. His best yet.
Spell on a Tin Drum is out on 17 May 2019.
Order via Bandcamp: https://alexseel.bandcamp.com/album/spell-on-a-tin-drum
Upcoming Dates
Fri, May 24 – The Harrison, King’s Cross, London WC1h 8JF (Songwriters’ Circle with Alex Seel, Greg Hancock & Steve Dagleish)
Sat, May 25 – Black Dyke Mills Heritage Venue, Black Dyke Mills, Bradford, West Yorkshire BD13 1QA (Songwriter’s Circle with Greg Hancock, Alex Seel and Iona Lane)
Sun, May 26 – Arch 17, Victoria Quays, Sheffield S2 5SY (Alex and The Dorothy Pax)
Sun, Jun 9 – The Sun & 13 Cantons, London W1F 9NG
Thu, Jun 13 – The Goose is Out, The Ivy House, London, SE15 3BE
More details via Alex’s website: https://www.alexseel.com/