Another fabulous review for A Cornucopia: Victory, the second disc of our 2024 Mega Album.
Ringmaster reviews - "In a year marking their 35-year anniversary, THE SPEED OF SOUND has certainly lit up the celebration with their new A Cornucopia: album trilogy and continue to with the release of the second full-length in the sonic triptych. A Cornucopia: Victory was initially available as part of the Deluxe Three-Disc CD and Vinyl Editions that were released with the digital unveiling of part one, Minerva in May via Big Stir Records. A few days ago the second part of the triplet received its own singular digital release and fair to say that if Minerva lit your fires, Victory will spark a blaze.
For us Victory is an even bolder and richer adventure than its striking predecessor, The UK outfit weaving an even more eclectic and unpredictable escapade for ears and the imagination alike. Manchester hailing, THE SPEED OF SOUND has come a long way in sound and presence since forming back in 1989. Recent years though have truly seen broad attention and keen acclaim gather around them, the release of their critically acclaimed 2021 album Museum Of Tomorrow a major spark in that escalation and of course now the A Cornucopia: collection.
Consisting of father and son John Armstrong (guitars and vocals) and Henry Armstrong (keyboards), Ann-Marie Crowley (vocals and guitar), Kevin Roache (bass guitar), and John Broadhurst (drums) The Speed of Sound is generally described as an indie rock / power pop outfit. They have always had an ever evolving sound that has almost disputed the slim view of that tagging though and within Victory they challenge it with glee and mischief. Even so, they have also bred a creative presence and musical voice that is distinct and obvious to them.
Victory opens with the shadowed wrapped Apocalypse Acropolis, a song contemplating a crumbled landscape around the remnants of a lost civilisation. The song shares a melancholically lit musing within a stroll as infectious as it is on the edge of despondency, a provocative proposal for body and thought alike which with every listen seems more poignant and compelling to every moment clouding and despoiling today.
It is a strong and alluring start to the release that the following From The Cradle To The Stars adds even greater persuasion to with its ethereal charm and lyrical consideration of again a world in chaos but the potential to make amends from the personal to the societal. As within its predecessor and across the album, Crowley is radiance in voice, celestial harmonies and presence. Around her guitars equally weave a seductive coaxing as rhythms set steady manipulation within the evanescent yet lingering and dreamy earth bound sunspot.
Go For It is next up and revels in the band’s new wave and punk rock instincts, a song drawing on seventies power pop as much as psych rock and post punk inclinations. Epitomising the multi-varied richness of the album and THE SPEED OF SOUND enterprise yet also its organic breeding, the track soon had a hand on favourite tracks honours if challenged throughout Victory with Underground a quick rival. The song instantly weaves a guitar spun indie rock proposal, John Armstrong’s Tom Verlaine-esque vocals defiant in voice and emotion and in fine union with Ann-Marie Crowley. Celebrating the unity of those ignored and often laying hidden from the powers that be, in music but life too, and persistently nagging with its great sonic jangle, the track proved thick captivation.
Lyrically linking to the last song and urging the risk and bravery of following one’s creative heart, Rock Paper Scissors soon held court on reassessing best track moment with its exotic exploration. Cast with psych rock lit tempting and a cosmopolitan infused imagination of sound, the track seduced as it fascinated. Crossing and merging landscapes of world travelling enterprise and other realm intimating possibilities, the song offers pure adventure and one delicious moment to immerse within.
X-Y Axis stirs a more melodic punk meets sixties garage rock involvement next, its sound decades embracing yet a fresh voracious wind for the now as too is The Same River with its indie pop candour and in turn the rock ‘n’ roll contagion that is A Walk By The Sea. Both of the latter songs provide a fusion of nostalgia and new adventure, the first with its acoustically charged heart a certain blues pop hot spot within the release.
With the excellent E to F uncaging late seventies inspired noise/indie pop shenanigans with feral rock instincts, the album only held tighter grip on ears before the following instrumental Apocalypse Metropolis sparked ears and the imagination to endorse that dense union. The second of the two proved manna to thought and joy, the track like a possibilities rich view on what might have been if the destruction that the album’s opener surveys had been averted.
Across the thought evoking proposal and eagerly infectious canter of Empathic Reaction and through the chilled almost haunting historical reflection of Permafrost, band and album again pulled emotions into their own provocative explorations. Each track again aligns the separate past with the uniqueness of the now, the harmonic climactic winds of the former a sweeping involvement and the jazzy musing of the latter with the trumpet of Bob Dinn providing evocative flaming to its suggestive shadows, darkly enthralling.
The album is closed out by firstly Monsoon, a pop jangling moment of drama and suggestive revelry basking in the release of supressed emotions and joy and lastly with the again almost transcendental realm and beauty of Tranquility Falls. The pair took us on individual adventures proving so easy to explore, success that every moment and breath of Victory shared with our appetites and instincts here."
