On earlier releases, The Clientele’s inability (or willful refusal) to concoct truly engaging melodies was overcome by their considerable gifts for atmosphere and mood. Much of Bonfires on the Heath, their latest, is simply lifeless. Singer/songwriter Alastair MacLean has always fought against his rather thin, forgettable voice, choosing to sing in a lower register, often exhaling his lyrics rather than pinning them to a pronounced melody. But when he was doing so atop the lush, reverb-drenched jangle-pop of 2005’s Strange Geometry, it was mostly effective, underscoring the music’s hazy, dreamlike appeal. And although the group transitioned away from a vaguely post-punk aesthetic and towards a more organic (read: acoustic), traditional sound with 2007’s God Save the Clientele, only one record into the group’s newest incarnation, the band sounds bored, the music staid.
I could provide a track-by-track synopsis of the record’s failings, but, really, its failure is not one of enough bravura or passion to deserve such scrutiny. The record’s true handicap – and this has been a flaw in the band’s work from the start – is the sense of near-apathy it elicits in the listener. And not only regarding one’s opinion of the music – rather, Bonfires on the Heath is so meandering, so uninvolving, so utterly flaccid that it is sometimes difficult to imagine how MacLean & co. bothered to get out of bed long enough to write and record it. Perhaps I’m failing to recognize some of the record’s more subtle, intellectual virtues – as always, the production, musicianship, and general arrangement of the music is impeccable, and evidence a meticulous, loving devotion to craft that one sorely wishes had been applied to the songwriting, as well – but, listening to this release, I’m overcome with the feeling that this is not music to be listened to by living, oxygen-inhaling-and-carbon-monoxide-releasing human beings. Rather, this sounds like music designed for that most odious of creatures – the music critic.
Indeed, I can’t imagine more than a few non-members of this sect bothering to understand how, although Bonfires on the Heath may sound repetitive and monochromatic, to the seasoned ear, the record is a veritable treasure trove of subtle twists and turns – oh, look! – a timeless ballad of gentle (sexless) affection, evoking a midnight waltz under the stars with your wife of 20 years (5-and-counting celibate). Watch out! – another tastefully underplayed “garage rocker,” like God Save’s “The Garden At Night” (but not as incorrigibly loud). You see, you can’t really understand the erudition of Bonfires unless you spend far more time thinking about what you’re listening to than actually listening.
And at the core, that’s my biggest problem with this record. For an ostensible “pop” release, it has absolutely no emotion; it’s a big, gauzy mothball of self-conscious ennui. I mean, c’mon, “a big gauzy mothball of self-conscious ennui” – who would enjoy a record that could reasonably be described as such? I read once that MacLean worked at a book publishing firm before the Clientele “took off,” as it were, and in an interview, as he reminisced about his days in the ink-trade, he recalled an anecdote wherein he had read the manuscript of a book about a boy at a wizarding school by an unknown British author named J.K. Rowling – he thought it was trash, and told his coworkers as much. They passed. After finding that Bonfires on the Heath is, despite what my subjective sense of time may have told me, only 41 minutes, I wonder if that little story tells you more about this record’s priorities than this entire review ever could.
