The Kissaway Trail - Sleep Mountain Album Review

Review of The Kissaway Trail's album Sleep Mountain

Critics who claim that Danish five piece The Kissaway Trail are a poor man's Arcade Fire will doubtless have a self satisfied grin on their faces during SDP, Sleep Mountain's opener. Complete with church bells, barnstorming sounding piano and a baroque, almost choral midsection, it's six minutes of convention-defying alt.pop with knobs on. Unless of course you already have a copy of Neon Bible.

But hold on. As revered as Win Butler and co. are in critical circles for realising that music is still a possible delivery method for art, after it's derivative beginning Sleep Mountain goes on to demonstrate that the Danes are far from one trick ponies.

With a collection of follow up material to their eponymous debut album scrapped and Interpol knob twiddler Peter Katis at the desk, the first job it seems was to create a soundscape (Terrible world, but the most appropriate) as panoramic as it was ambitious. This is a record which has the feeling of wide open spaces, not perhaps a world as pixie inhabited as that of that Sigur Ros, but one in which Phil Spector can be seen hanging out with Ian Anderson in his Songs From The Wood phase. Lead singer Thomas Fagerlund stretches his slightly atonal voice across this backdrop - making their trippy, excellent cover of Neil Young's Philadelphia more than appropriate - underlining why he is cast as a europhile Wayne Coyne his colleagues are frequently compared to the likes of Lambchop and Grandaddy.

Were everything merely pretty however it would be difficult to sustain this aura over eleven songs, and thankfully there are some angular and less expected departures to keep listeners on their toes. New Lipstick - despite the wheezy accordion - sees Fagerlund and the band venturing far up tempo with almost dancefloor orientated results, whilst the chattering drums and neat arpeggios of Friendly Fire hints at a perhaps surprising admiration for early New Order. But although these should be enough to counter any remaining notions of derivation, Sleep Mountain's finest hour is still arguably one which does what it says on The Kissaway Trail tin, as the anthemic Don't Wake Up leaves no kitchen sink unturned in its quest for sing-out-loud glory. It's a song that deserves a wider audience, and in a world in which Vampire Weekend can have a chart topping record in the US, it's one that may yet be reached.

Andy Peterson