Anyone, myself included, who judged Guillemots on the superb ‘Trains To Brazil’ will find themselves deeply disturbed by Through The Windowpane. Sure, the aforementioned single is present and correct, sounding as thoroughly loveable as it did on first listen. But for the most part their major label debut is much more morose than the brass-inflected majesty of that tune, with the result that it’s like picking up what you thought was a book of Spike Milligan poetry, only to find an Emily Dickinson omnibus instead.
Through The Windowpane is a mixed bag, some of which works extremely well, while the rest falls flat on its face like the Czech Republic’s World Cup hopes. The trouble is that the band sound like they’re deliberately going for incoherency, crossing genres and styles in a manner that seems wilfully slapdash.
The album opens well, with the heavily-orchestrated ‘Little Bear’ coming across like a Gus Van Sant movie score, all swelling strings and more melancholia than you could shake a conductor’s baton at. The brilliantly titled ‘Made Up Lovesong #43’ shuffles along at mid-pace, while Guillemots get to trumpet their serious artist credentials with lyrics about there being poetry in an empty Coke can. One of the finest and most honestly heart-rending break-up songs I’ve heard in ages, ‘Redwings’ is as deliciously delicate as fois gras, and its jazz-timing and soaring vocals will doubtless draw a myriad of Jeff Buckley comparisons, as will ‘If The World Ends’, which could quite easily be an out-take from Grace.
But Through The Window Pane’s mid-section feels bloated, with the mind-numbing ‘Come Away With Me’, the overwrought title track and the sweeping Keane-isms of ‘We’re Here’. And frankly, whoever took the decision to include ‘Blue Would Still Be Blue’ here should be taken out and publicly bombarded with fat men’s soggy undergarments.
Guillemots redeem themselves somewhat at the end, with the impressive ‘Annie, Let’s Not Wait’ and the sublime spaghetti-western-meets-Michael-Nyman melodrama of ‘Sao Paulo’. These guys have it in them to be truly great, but Through The Windowpane is far too calculatedly eclectic for its own good.