LUCKY ELEPHANT: The Rainy Kingdom (ALTERNATIVE ROCK): review / opinion to read on Music Waves

Lucky Elephant is a quartet which shares its origins between France through its singer and England. This second album entitled "The Rainy Kingdom" is the band's way of making us feel what it was like, especially in the 70s in London, and what many people are still living through when they are moved from their unhealthy or old-fashioned neighbourhoods to be housed in the bars of buildings that are certainly modern and clean but lifeless.

Against the back of such a sensitive social issue, the listener will not be surprised to find a large number of tracks full of melancholy. From the opening track "Old Kent Road", the band takes us into this nostalgic universe through a deep and pure bass line on which the guitar plays a few chords. The brighter refrain allows the track not to get lost in the tearfulness and gives it a nice balance in the end.

The vintage aspect that was already being felt becomes very significant on the second track "The British Working Man" characterized by its accordion and dated synth sounds. With no vocals replaced by samples, the track is a bit surprising with its outdated ritornello and not particularly pleasant to the ear. The fact that it seems to have been chosen to present the album (a video has been made to put it in pictures) is another rather strange choice...

The sequel proves to be much more catchy, with notably the more energetic "All The Streets I have known" with its warm sonorities and subtle melody, or "Buckets And Spades", a track that could have been soporific if it hadn't been disturbed by a jousting rise in power in its middle. "The Girl I Love" keeps all its promises with its intimate romantic ballad side while "Little Darling", at the limit of the instrumental, ends the album on a playful and very pleasant note.

This "Rainy Kingdoms" is in the end a rather paradoxical record. If the sounds, the very expressive playing of the musicians and some melodies often seem to come from another era, the whole is resolutely modern. If we take out one or two tracks that are a bit too simple, the album is a total success, a kind of back to the future in which we would like to get lost so as not to come back... - Official website

LUCKY ELEPHANT

THE RAINY KINGDOM

PIAS

ALTERNATIVE ROCK