Sunday 1 October 2023

 Weirdly this is the second review in a row where a bands goes orchestral - In this case it's the New Model Army with Sinfonia.

As before with the PSB album this is superbly done. As you would expect from New Model Army this is not just bolting on some strings to the hits, this is so much more.

An overture of orchestral snippets from some songs to come tease you in before the tumbling, tribal drums power you through the Devil's Bargain. A statement of intent.

There is a lot more between song chat which is quite fun (as Justin notes, with orchestras there isa lot of page turning)

Other highlights include Winter which works so well in this format that it suddenly becomes one of my favourite NMA songs - "I fear the age of consequence and I wish that it was over"

Vagabonds has an amazing new intro where the single violin of the original is magnified by an orchestra of strings and extended to nearly 10 minutes.

There are surprises with tracks that haven't be heard live for decades - Shot 18 and 1984.

Of course the whole package is wrapped in another stunningly, beautiful bit of artwork from Joolz.

This is the sound of my favourite band, becoming better and better. Love them. Always.



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