The Left Outsides: All That Remains
Cardinal Fuzz / Feeding Tube
Similar to The Left Outsides' 2017 cassette There Is A Place, All That Remains resists easy stylistic capture, with husband-and-wife duo Mark Nicholas and Alison Cotton quite happy to shift gears from one song to the next and keep listeners guessing. On its fifth album, a vinyl set co-released by Cardinal Fuzz and Feeding Tube, the UK-based outfit traffic in everything from hard-edged rock to pastoral psych-folk. Lead vocals are split between the two; she's also credited with harmonium and viola, and it's the latter that lends the group's folk-rock blend a good deal of its individuating character; no slouch in the instrumental department, her partner contributes bass, guitar, piano, and drums to the nine-song set.
Powered by a chunky guitar riff, “The Unbroken Circle” bolts from the gate before settling into a tight pop-rock groove, with Nicholas's smooth lead buffeted by Cotton's viola and harmony vocals. She takes the lead on the tough rocker “Clothed in Ivory, Obscured by Dust,” which plays like some inspired riff on early Kinks and Rolling Stones. If such tunes feel more like classic underground hits from the ‘60s or ‘70s, it's no knock against them.
Switching things up, “Naming Shadows Was Your Existence” opts for a folk-styled dirge roughened by grungy guitar stabs and sweetened by a vocal from Cotton that wouldn't sound out of place in a Renaissance ballad (the group, that is); dirge-like too is “All Those I Danced With Are Gone,” a cabaret-styled waltz that oozes a cryptic, Nico-like grandeur. Better still is the slow-burning lament “The Ballad of Elm Tree Hill,” not only for its melodic allure but for the loveliness of Cotton's multi-tracked vocals and viola accompaniment.
Think hypnotic tunes that flirt with prog, pop, folk, rock, and even punk, sometimes within the same song, and you'll have some idea of this special album's appeal. Prominently featuring a mellotron in “The Yellow Wallpaper” can't help but add a prog dimension to the project, which in one song might remind you of Fairport Convention or Caravan and in another The Zombies or early Pink Floyd. Feeding Tube's Byron Coley calls All That Remains “a very special spin,” and he's not far wrong in that regard.April 2018