So good to have some new material from Kenny Anderson, and it is in the form of a double A side single, with both tracks available online.
‘Susie Mullen’ is a high BPM number, starting with the sound from a “souvenir camel toy”, well it had to start somewhere… It is a gorgeous but riotous number with some modular synth beeps increasing the chaos before KC steps in with the best opening line of the year “It’s over twenty years too late” before professing his adoration for the subject of the song – who is/was she, only he knows? The harmonies and the weird guitar sounds threaten to overtake the vocal but he stands strong, while the camel toy goes on in the background! The track is a wigout of massive proportions and BM cannot help wishing it could be heard live in full effect very soon indeed…
‘Walter de la Nightmare’ is slower, more stately but still has the modular synth (Lomond Campbell again, BM thinks) and is really a ballad… There are some great lines – “is the place you warned me of?”… There is banjo or similar, while Kenny intones about being “a lunatic”… The fiddle comes in and the meditative atmosphere takes over, with ever more interesting chord changes… Wonderful, as ever.
As already said, so good to have new material from Scotland’s (currently) greatest musical auteur…