I'm going to start this with a confession - I don't
know much about brass bands. I'm partial to the sound of a Salvation Army band
playing carols at Christmas, but that's about as far as my toes have ever been
dipped in these waters. In fact, I had to check online what the difference
between a brass and silver band (which the ensemble on here appear to be) is,
and it seems there isn't any. So I've learned something there at
least.
To my ignorant mind, the sound of a military brass band should be loud and strident, something that makes you want to start marching around the room, but that's not really how I feel when I listen to this. That's mainly because the band on here are curiously muted and underwhelming, it's as if they'd been told to keep it down because the kids are in bed. Rather than blaring away in your face, the overall effect is almost ambient, the sound of a band parping away somewhere in the background at a fete on the village green. Even Sousa's normally rousing 'Liberty Bell' fails to put me in a good humour and it's lumpen plod reminds me less of Monty Python (who borrowed it for their theme tune) and more of a cake stall and tombola. It's too polite for its own good, and with politeness comes dullness I'm afraid.
The track list is a broad church drawn from all countries and cultures. Sousa marches, 'Rule Britannia', the 'Soldier's Chorus' from Gounod's 'Faust' and the Russian 'Cavalry Of The Steppes' all rub up against each other in a way that should have generated sparks from the static, but instead of a sprinkling of fairy dust the Royal Corps of Transport boys shower ordinary house dust over all and deaden them to a dullness that would take a good few gallons of Brasso to make shiny again. They couldn' even be bothered to give the album a title.
I suppose the word I'm looking for but trying not to use is 'amateur' - it all sounds amateur and conjures up images of draughty scout halls in autumn. Whether that's fair observation or not I couldn't say; I don't know enough about brass bands to be definitive and it's why I'm relucatant to use it, but as a reviewer then I can only speak as I find, and I find this irredeemably boring. It's the sort of music that could have soundtracked every wet Sunday afternoon of my childhood and at the end it leaves me feeling the same way that the drum major on the cover looks (yes, I also learned that the leader of a marching band is called a 'drum major' and the stick he carries is called a 'mace'. See? Learning all the time).
To my ignorant mind, the sound of a military brass band should be loud and strident, something that makes you want to start marching around the room, but that's not really how I feel when I listen to this. That's mainly because the band on here are curiously muted and underwhelming, it's as if they'd been told to keep it down because the kids are in bed. Rather than blaring away in your face, the overall effect is almost ambient, the sound of a band parping away somewhere in the background at a fete on the village green. Even Sousa's normally rousing 'Liberty Bell' fails to put me in a good humour and it's lumpen plod reminds me less of Monty Python (who borrowed it for their theme tune) and more of a cake stall and tombola. It's too polite for its own good, and with politeness comes dullness I'm afraid.
The track list is a broad church drawn from all countries and cultures. Sousa marches, 'Rule Britannia', the 'Soldier's Chorus' from Gounod's 'Faust' and the Russian 'Cavalry Of The Steppes' all rub up against each other in a way that should have generated sparks from the static, but instead of a sprinkling of fairy dust the Royal Corps of Transport boys shower ordinary house dust over all and deaden them to a dullness that would take a good few gallons of Brasso to make shiny again. They couldn' even be bothered to give the album a title.
I suppose the word I'm looking for but trying not to use is 'amateur' - it all sounds amateur and conjures up images of draughty scout halls in autumn. Whether that's fair observation or not I couldn't say; I don't know enough about brass bands to be definitive and it's why I'm relucatant to use it, but as a reviewer then I can only speak as I find, and I find this irredeemably boring. It's the sort of music that could have soundtracked every wet Sunday afternoon of my childhood and at the end it leaves me feeling the same way that the drum major on the cover looks (yes, I also learned that the leader of a marching band is called a 'drum major' and the stick he carries is called a 'mace'. See? Learning all the time).
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