Stackridge (Expanded Edition)

The debut album from Stackridge consists of nine curiously light folk-tinged tracks, with elements of progressive rock cropping up here and there in the friendly Canterbury style. Their music takes on the classic storytelling route, but is bolstered and heightened by instruments like violins, flutes, cellos, trumpets, and the distinct sound of the harmonium played by Andrew Creswell-Davis. Both James Warren and Creswell-Davis take turns at singing such merry lyrical excerpts as "40 missing floorboards, 50 frantic far-out mice below," sounding attractively waggish and peculiarly quaint in doing so. Without coming off as overly Celtic or far too English, Stackridge culminates the humor and the essence of figurative devices and lays them out within the field of woodwind and stringed instruments. With barely any percussion, songs like "Percy the Penguin" and "The Three Legged Table" carry out their jovial entendres to the eloquence of hand-plucked piano strings and a trio of trumpets. Their refined singing style helps each song render its own character and eccentricity when added to the numerous instruments. The albums that followed such as Friendliness and The Man in the Bowler Hat housed the same poetic components as their first release with the music sounding more progressive and slightly commercial. ~ Mike DeGagne