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It’s reasonably safe to assume that your name doesn’t define who you are, how you act or if you’re lucky enough to be employed what you do; there’s probably an Alex Turner that stacks shelves in Sainsbury’s, a plumber that goes by the name Chris Martin and just maybe a city banker called Thom Yorke. But if your name is Fyfe Dangerfield and you’re not a fictional secret agent tasked with saving the planet from the clutches of evil then what else can you do apart from front a band?
Recorded in just five days and produced by Adam Noble (Coldplay, Guillemots, Paul McCartney) ‘Fly Yellow Moon’ is Dangerfield’s first solo release as a singer songwriter away from the Guillemots. And fear not, despite the often-prerequisite responsive interplay between emotive piano and considered acoustic guitar, Dangerfield’s musings don’t immediately prompt that all too familiar singer songwriter cringe factor.
The short ten-track duration of ‘Fly Yellow Moon’ is in fact an above average example of unapologetic balladry, the honesty and integrity of this self-penned melodic portrait remaining intact, the result perhaps of a classically trained background and absolute pitch; the ability to identify or recreate a musical note without external reference.
Despite his near unique musical stamp ‘Fly Yellow Moon’ courts snatched comparisons to Jeff Buckley, Johnny Cash and even in places Mick Travis and The Coral; essentially its an album of highs, lows and somewhere in-betweens where personal memories are made public and the universal staples of life, love, loss and unabashed hope unravelled.
It’s something of a fine art to base an album on sentimental sincerity and not sound overly twee, and so credit must be attributed to Dangerfield’s dexterous pop ambitions and the all singing, all dancing, shuffling shindig of West End orchestration that steers the likes of ‘When You Walk In The Room’, ‘She Needs Me’ and ‘Faster Than The Setting Sun’ (the latter of the two being mixed by Bernard Butler) through an otherwise well trodden musical path of past, present and future.
As the man himself says of making the album “a good time was had by all” and after a few listens at least you can’t help but appreciate the sentiment.
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