Download Photos

• pugwash01.jpg []
• pugwash02.jpg []
• pugwash03.jpg []
• pugwash04.jpg []
• pugwash05.jpg []
• pugwash06.jpg []
• pugwash07.jpg []
• pugwash08.jpg []

11 Modern Antiquities Review

There’s a lot of attention given to what has become known as the difficult second album . In reality, things don’t get any easier with the third, or in Pugwash’s case, the fourth. Following the 2005 JOLLITY was a big undertaking, yet Thomas Walsh has made it sound like one he has relished. In fact, 11 MODERN ANTIQUITIES is an album that has such an array of qualities, that it’s easy to overlook some of them. The single TAKE ME AWAY opens proceedings, featuring a bassline that almost steals the limelight all to itself. As you move deeper into the album, it evokes images of many of Pugwash’s heroes and influences, a number of whom are guests and co-writers (XTC s Dave Gregory and Andy Partridge, Jason Falkner and Michael Penn, to name but four). Many of the ideas aren’t what you would class as groundbreaking, but it’s the manner in which they are delivered that is truly remarkable. ITS SO FINE and LANDSDOWNE VALLEY draw your mind back to decades past, and would sit perfectly well with the best that those years had to offer. Forgive STATE for using the O word, but if Noel Gallagher wrote songs like these, he might manage to drag Oasis from the creative doldrums that they have been inhabiting for the past decade. The point can’t be made any other way; 11 MODERN ANTIQUITIES is a triumph. Pugwash’s Thomas Walsh has been quietly crafting classic pop melodies for almost a decade, but only now is he getting the credit he deserves. Taking his influences from some of the greats, 11 M.A. sees Walsh now joined by them, with two tracks, My Genius and At the Sea, co-written with XTC s Andy Partridge.

The State
April 2008

Discuss...

Commenting is closed for this article.

• www.pixelated.ie