Leg - An Eagle to Saturn

  by Andy Cassidy

published: 26 / 6 / 2012

---

'An Eagle to Saturn' is the third album by Edinburgh-based three piece the Leg and it ranks among the most joyously eccentric albums that I have ever heard. A veritable melting point of genres, the album bristles with manic energy and will delight open-minded listeners with its arch silliness and sheer rambunctiousness. That the album was ever released is testament to the vision of the Leg’s fiercely independent label, Song, by Toad Records – it’s hard to imagine the 'X-Factor' crowd getting too heavily into this album…thankfully. The album opens with 'Eagle to Saturn', a spiky post-punk number with a sneering vocal and a great rhythm part which features the group’s Pete Harvey on cello. The cello as a percussive instrument, very much in the same way as Brian Wilson employed it on 'Good Vibrations', is a recurring motif on the album, and it is extremely effective. The track is pretty crowded, but definitely in a good way – there is a new sound, rhythm or texture with each successive listen and this keeps the track fresh in a way that more sparse productions fail to manage. Second track, 'Twitching Stick', is more punk than post-punk, with Harvey’s cello sounding more like John Cale’s violin work with the Velvet Underground. The track takes the album’s silliness up a notch when the shouted refrain “I don’t know what a twitching stick is!” becomes a pile-driven rapid fire punk mantra. As with 'Eagle to Saturn', the instrumentation and vocals are superb, combining energy with an authentic snarl. Third track, 'Bake Yourself Silly', is a slightly quieter affair driven by Daniel Mutch’s banjo. The quieter music, however, belies a more menacing lyric than anything else on the album. The lyric is cryptic, asking the eponymous Bruno “what part of fuck off don’t you understand?” before the truly off-kilter statement that “there are no stitches cause there was no operation.” The lyric did, however, make me smirk with the line, “Bruno the baker believes in crazy things,” – given the nature of the album thus far, I suspect that Bruno isn’t the only one! The album’s mood changes with 'Sad as Dead Monkeys', a cello-backed lament over which the listener can almost make out a set of melancholic lyrics delivered in a heavily distorted vocal. Despite being unable to hear much of the lyrical content, the cello theme roots the track firmly in the sadder end of the musical spectrum. Musically the cello theme is frankly gorgeous and while I enjoy the album version I would very much like to hear a version stripped of vocals. The heaviest song on the album, 'Freda Bolt', is an overdrive-soaked, shouty affair. Not for the first time, I was struck by Alun Thomas’ terrific drum work. The track has a vaguely Mifflr Eastern theme going on in the background and lyrically it is more serious than the rest of the album. That said, it is still an extremely enjoyable piece of music. The album ends with '?', a heavy rock piece with flavours of Celtic folk and yet more terrific cello playing. A superbly arranged track, it is the perfect ending to a fantastic album. Over the ten tracks of 'An Eagle to Saturn', I found myself experiencing a wide range of emotions. The abiding feeling was one of intense satisfaction – this is a bold, inventive and challenging album, reminiscent in ethos of Zappa or Beefheart. Having heard the sheer outpouring of energy evident on this recording, I can only imagine what these guys are like playing live. I’ve listened to the album a couple of times now, and I honestly don’t think that there is anything I would change about it – it truly is a sublime recording and one which will no doubt feature in more than a few best of 2012 lists come December.

Track Listing:-

1 An Eagle to Saturn
2 Twitching Stick
3 Bake Yourself Silly
4 Witch On the Speaker
5 Sad As Dead Monkeys
6 The Birds Are Falling
7 Freda Bolt
8 God Don't Like It
9 Jingle Bells In the Summertime

Label Links:-

http://songbytoad.com/
https://www.facebook.com/songbytoad
https://plus.google.com/107779834812022207503
https://twitter.com/songbytoad
https://www.youtube.com/user/songbytoad
https://www.flickr.com/photos/songbytoad

Post A Comment

---

Comment

Name

your name

Location

ie London, UK

Submit

Check box to submit

Adam Coxon
Adrian Janes
Amanda J. Window
Andrew Twambley
Anthony Dhanendran
Benjamin Howarth
Cila Warncke
Daniel Cressey
Darren Aston
Dastardly
Dave Goodwin
Denzil Watson

Dixie Ernill
Dominic B. Simpson
Eoghan Lyng
Fiona Hutchings
Harry Sherriff
Helen Tipping
Jamie Rowland
John Clarkson
Julie Cruickshank
Kimberly Bright
Lisa Torem
Maarten Schiethart

Malcolm Carter
Marie Hazelwood
Mark Rowland
Nick Dent-Robinson
Nicky Crewe
Nige Nudds
Philamonjaro
Richard Lewis
Shirley Procter
Spencer Robertshaw
Steev Burgess
Steve Kinrade

Steve Miles
Tommy Gunnarsson
Zena Grieg