Review Summary: Cirque du Doof
This being an album of supposed 'Circus Songs' recorded by the perennially mischievous and flamboyantly camp Tiger Lillies you'd be forgiven for readying yourself for an onslaught of outrageous technicolour freakery. Not so, instead what you're confronted with here is the band's most consistent, refined, atmospheric and, dare I say, restrained work. So if you're hoping to hear the Elephant Man hot footing it around the room then it's to this album's 'sort of' follow up 'Freakshow' that you should turn your attentions; for this album remains a resolutely slow-burning pleasure made up of surprisingly subtle song writing and subdued instrumentation.
The musical palette is for the most part exactly what we're used to with the Lillies (accordion, toy drums, double bass) but at key moments keyboards emerge from low in the mix to help bring an almost Lynch-esque ambience to proceedings. The first time they show up is on the atypical and dreamlike 'Sleep with the Fishes', a piece that comes across as strangely comforting thanks in large part to these alien synth textures. The second time they appear is on the far darker 'Bearded Lady', the lyrics describing a cast of local undesirables including Gypsy Joe, your go to man if you want someone's throat slashed. This time the keyboards provide an intermittent backdrop of creepy swirling effects that perfectly reflect the mood of underlying violence and lurking threats.
The Lillies further show their range with two perfectly selected cover versions; the obvious candidate for inclusion is of course 'Send in the Clowns', only this particularly reading of the Sondheim standard is distinctly minimal, sombre and funereally paced; an interpretation of 'My Fair Lady's 'Danced All Night' is a more surprising addition and sees the band deliver an impressively tasteful take on the original, ending up with a sound that approximates traditional accordion led folk music. Material such as this seems to exist in some sort of ageless vacuum and could conceivably have been performed in exactly the same fashion at any time in the last 150 years or so.
'Circus Songs' is a classic example of an album where the material gets progressively stronger as it continues, and in particular the final run of four songs is near faultless. 'Pretty Lisa' boasts one of Martyn Jaques most engaging vocal performances, one which elevates this straightforward pretty ditty into the realms of all time classic two minute storytelling compositions. Meanwhile 'Circus Clown' succeeds in bringing all the album's themes and characters together for a moment of reckoning, the lyrics cutting to the cruel heart of this circus, a place where 'nothing is quite what it seems' and you risk drowning in a 'sea of wine'. 'Over You' is a moment of perverse stillness and tragic beauty before the album's undoubted highlight reveals itself; 'Pall Bearers' is easily the most intense song of the lot, the range of singing from Jacques displayed here is quite something to behold.
It's undeniably impressive that, despite their all consuming shtick and highly stylised musical approach, the Tiger Lillies remain one of those incredibly rare acts who can always be relied on to find fresh ways to deliver the same sorts of ideas. At times when listening to this carefully considered collection it's easy to forget that this is the same band who recorded the depraved and wilfully abrasive 'Bad Blood + Blasphemy' a mere year earlier. Whether this will stand up as your favourite Lillies release will therefore come down to matters of taste; the laughs are fewer, the shocks somewhat dulled, and yet the song writing itself is arguably all the stronger for it. How can this be? Put it all down to another act of artful illusion from the best in the business.
