Grand Hallway
Promenade
Rating: 3.0/5.0
Label: Self-released
Grand Hallway's second full length album, Promenade, has been described by the band as the "fractured narrative" of one relationship leading into another. I suppose that makes it a concept album, though you wouldn't know it at hearing it. Instead, it seems more a careful collection of elaborately arranged chamber-pop songs, driven by instrumentation as varied as organ, marimba, pedal steel and vibraphone, not to mention the usual guitars and choral vocals. While frontman Tomo Nakayama is given songwriting credit for each of the 10 songs, the lengthy liner credits (24 individual musicians contributed by my count) and full sound seem to speak of a highly collaborative album.
Opening with "Raindrops (Matsuri)," an initially quiet and contemplative grower of a song, Promenade is a melancholy album, but not a sad one. Even in the gentle guitar strums and the eventually desperate call of "I'd rather be with you/ When you're starting out," there's an element of vivacity and life that permeates the entire record- it's certainly fitting that "matsuri" translates from Japanese to something close to "festival." This first song sets the template for the rest of the album; Nakayama's voice keens over a huge assembly of violins, horns and drums, all so carefully layered as to sound part of a whole rather than cacophony. Even more gentle, somber songs like "Under The Roof" and "In A Cave," both threaten to become a little too soporific, respectively built on spare guitar, piano and nameless, if somewhat generic, tragedy. "Pearrygin (Quite a Quiet)" finally tips them over the edge of schmaltz late in the album, all Spector-ish strings and heavy piano. Nakayama lays it on a little too thick with "I'm sorry you're not here to see/ It's quite a quiet;" the strings by themselves could perhaps pass, but there's only so much emoting that a single song could take. Fortunately, "Elinor With The Golden Hair (Tsukimi)," which lifts a Elton John piano stomp to great effect as well as layered, descending vocals and "Usagi No Uta," sung entirely in Japanese, more than make up for Promenade's overreaches.
The album's greatest moment is undoubtedly "Blessed Be, Honey Bee." It's just a pity that it's only the second track on the album. Beginning with a massed choral vocal and rising strings, the song explodes into one of most effortlessly beautiful guitar lines I've heard all year. It's simultaneously graceful and pounding, with heavy drums matched against lyrics like "Blessed be, honey bee/ When you're lying next to me/ I'm a hibernating grizzly bear." The imagery of lovers sleeping through the winter on the love they've stored against the cold is beautiful and dreamy, meeting exactly the sound of violins and the repeated chorus. While the album itself may be somewhat frontloaded, that one song at least is on my shortlist for best of the year.
Promenade is clearly the work of a growing band, brilliant in fits and prone to the exaggeration of the own fine qualities of others. It's a sign of maturity to be able to use one's own skills in measured ways, so maybe they'll get there - they've certainly got the talent. I just hope they learn restraint soon.
by Nathan Kamal
