The Charlatans U.K.
Tellin' Stories
MCA Records
Release Date: 1997
I'm a little afraid of art galleries. I meander, blinking helplessly at the works on the wall, feeling like I'm seeing someone else's vacation pictures. I see the colors and shapes -- the final product -- but I don't taste the gritty dust that seeps into the food or smell the rain on the leaves. I have no context.
Unless I go with a painter friend. He doesn't tell me what to see; rather, he tosses me chips of information, history, that helps me construct my own vision of art. He adds layers until the painting shimmer with depth that I never would have seen without him.
Now and then an album comes along that, if you know its history, carries those layers you ordinarily might not have seen. What Nirvana fan didn't hear agony in every heart-wrenching note of the MTV Unplugged album? Similarly, The Charlatans UK's Tellin' Stories, album number five, is embroidered with tragedy. Keyboardist and sometime vocalist Rob Collins left the studio one night while working on the record and never made it home, killed in a car accident.
Collins had already contributed his share of chaos to the Charlatans' history during the production of album number three, Up to Our Hips, when he drove the getaway car for an armed robbery and spent four months in jail. By all accounts, Collins had pulled his life together and things looked good by the time self-titled album number four hit the streets in 1995 and returned the band to the UK's number one slot.
I spent my first listen to Tellin' Stories in a blur (really, no pun intended) of sadness and joy. Having morphed into a rabid Charlatans fan with the first notes of Some Friendly, I paid silent tribute to Collins while soaking in the familiar bath of crowing organ, swirling guitar and Tim Burgess' laconic vocals.
The album ended. I restarted it. And the shadow of deja vu crept over my shoulder. That trippy shuffle, that pounding swell, that bump and organ grind. Tellin' Stories reminded me of something, of some Britpop band I had known for years. Who was it? I racked my brain; Anglophile that I am, it could be anyone.
Finally the answer cracked me on the bridge of the nose. Strange as this may sound, Tellin' Stories sounds exactly like. . . The Charlatans UK. Instantly, undoubtedly, this is a classic. It's the album you knew you'd find if you followed their trail of musical crumbs through the forest to its end.
The Charlatans faced their greatest catastrophe at the very moment they were most able to handle it. With help from Primal Scream's Martin Duffy (and whoever may eventually replace him), the band has no intention of interrupting this momentum. The strength of their music speaks for itself.
-- Lindy Powell
powell@outersound.com
