Arriving with their much lauded 4AD debut, ‘Gulag Orkestar’, early last year, Beirut – from, of course, Albuquerque, USA, joining a growing list of geographically deceptive bands – achieved a feat by conditioning multi-pronged Eastern European folk of a vaguely experimental bent and introducing it to Western ears, making the impenetrable deliciously intoxicating. Stacks of instruments largely underused by popular music since the 16th century assimilated into hypnotic meshes of sashaying organic sound. And they, along with The Arcade Fire and Gogol Bordello, made the accordion sexy again as a lead instrument, if ever it were sexy in the first place, and we’re sure it must have been, bellowing as it does in that altogether sensual motion. The album never took a particularly solid shape, rather it swept you along on successive surging waves of rustic melody and coarse multi-voiced harmonies. It was, and remains, a mesmerising experience.
Its follow up arrives less than 18 months later, but is far from a hurried or piecemeal project, though its natural momentum is ever present and at least leaves the suggestion that this could have just fallen together one night with the aid of vodka, ale, mountain air, moonlight and high spirits. If there’s any difference from last time, and the quality certainly hasn’t dropped, this record is more buttoned-up and immediate, and a little less Eastern. ‘St Apollonia’ is a fabulous mesh of mandolin, smoky jazz horns, a regimented waltz and trilled vocals, like Serge Gainsbourg and Tindersticks hunting wolves, ‘Nantes’ picks up a French theme with bar room piano, horns and tight percussion with 2-tone undertones and ‘A Sunday Smile’ takes that forward with a mass swaying choral surge. These 13 lucid songs mark out the meeting point between A Hawk & A Hacksaw and The Decemberists’ baroque sepia tales, with a few more steps towards the latter to bring shapes into focus. Importantly, Zach Condon’s songs are as enchanted as ever.