by James Pickering
**
Probably the first thing to strike you about Napoleon IIIrd is the sheer uniqueness of his musical style. The Wakefield-based musician is best know for his use of reel-to-reel tape players on stage (occasionally with surround sound), and with this in mind one can quite easily guess that what you will be listening to is refreshingly unorthodox. The dramatic opening to the album, Introduction to A, and the opening few seconds of This is My Call to Arms show that, despite the ‘indie’ genre he is labelled with, this will certainly not be any standard run-of the mill rock-pop record, but the fusion of acoustic guitar, electronic and Oldfield-esque melodramatic sounds makes a nice change from the tired moanings and feeble guitar riffs often attributed to the modern indie scene. This does give the album an experimental feel, for which it may suffer. The stop-start nature of some songs and off-beat play, though difficult to enjoy at first, can be quite charming after a while. Indeed, if Napoleon put his mind to it, he could be a modern, indie Frank Zappa. However, while Zappa could occasionally sing, Napoleon IIIrd’s offering suffers most because he can’t. He often sounds like a male Kate Nash, which may sound like aural pleasure to some, but when mixed as eccentrically as he does sounds more like a concert of hoarse tramps. All this over the top of such a complex soundtrack makes the album rather difficult to enjoy when first listened to.
This is a shame, because lyrically it is often very good, such tracks as Defibrillator and The Conformist Takes it All exhibiting Napoleon’s emotive style, even if Defibrillator’s outro (“my bleeding heart”) sounds as if he just banged on part of a death metal track for the hell of it. This coupled with the musical style- beginning raw and melodramatic, through to soft acoustic and finally up-beat indie- means that if you can get over the at times terrible singing and difficult musical style, you may well find this album very rewarding. However, for the casual music listener, listening to this album will give the sense that while there’s a lot of opportunity for Napoleon to do well, it’ll only happen if he either A.) learns to sing; or B.) finds himself a band, in which case his true skill, the Zappa-esque experimentalism with music, could shine quite brightly.
