★★★★★
Five Stars

People often talk about the emotions a film made them feel, and where they felt them. A film can tug at your heart strings, tie your stomach in knots, make your brain hurt or sit in your gut. Hide Your Smiling Faces, which is beginning its limited release in London this week before expanding to other major cities, settles atop your rib cage, weighing down onto your lungs. It feels mostly like regret, but a little like resignation. And it’s magnificent.

The film is an unconventional coming of age tale that concerns itself with two brothers who live with their parents in a small provincial community that is spread throughout a seemingly endless forest. One of the boys is about to enter adolescence, the other about to leave it. The oldest is disaffected and frustrated, unarticulated rage and resentment lying constantly beneath the surface. The youngest is slowly beginning to lose his wide-eyed naïveté, emulating the eldest without understanding him.

The film feels like the kind that belongs in galleries, told as it is in disconnected vignettes. Its technique is subtle, its director’s hand hidden, so that we feel we are observing a story, rather than being told one.

Another boy from the neighbourhood falls from a viaduct to his death. An argument with a neighbour about the family dog escalates. One of the boys learns to swim. These types of loose narrative threads unfold slowly and insignificantly, adding to the characters’ lack of purpose and invoking the audience’s memories of the claustrophobia and heat of the long summers of childhood. The slow pace both numbs you and makes you restless, and so we come to understand the boys.

The film’s primary theme is the boys’ existential awakening. They are fascinated with the borders of their existence, though the youngest is just beginning to grasp where these lie, whilst the oldest is already tired of them. They observe bugs and lizards crawling across their skin. They wrestle with other neighbourhood boys in secluded fields, they inflict emotional wounds on authority figures to see how far the repercussions extend.

We feel the eldest’s weariness with the borders of his experience in the never ending forest, in the ceaseless evening light, in the constant drone of the ambient score that eventually quietens down to reveal, even worse, monotonous silence.

Some scenes play out in a single take, whilst others cut between intimate closeups and distant long shots. In this way we are invited to observe the same surfaces of places and people that the boys experience, but like them we are also kept at a distance. Our understanding of scenes is only what we bring to them, what memories and feelings we project onto these surfaces. We have to make sense of the film’s environment as much as the boys do.

Part of this discovery of their own existence is the discovery of death, the spectre of which hangs over the whole film. Again, the youngest is just becoming aware of his own mortality whilst the oldest is already well aware of his, perhaps even glad of it. Adults try to deal with the death of the boy who fell, animal carcases litter the woods, their friend tells them he wants to die.

That these ideas simmer quietly without further examination for much of the film reminds us of the boys’ innocence, of their inarticulacy and of their tenuous grasp on the border between life and death. They continue to play on the viaduct, to fight each other, to toy with stolen weapons. They know that actions have consequences, but they think that like the ripples on the surface of their lake, that they only spread outwards from the source. The film shows how much more complicated it can be than that.

A haunting and poetic work with inspired minimalist direction and some of the most naturalist children’s performances ever captured on screen, Hide Your Smiling Faces is a must see film for fans of personal film-making. It is nostalgic not for the transience of childhood, but for the seeming endlessness in which it is experienced. A sensory experience as much as an intellectual one, the film is hypnotic, thematically potent, and my favourite film of the year so far. Seek it out.

Four Stars
★★★★☆

The self-titled album from Wisconsin sextet Phox is a genre-busting magical mystery tour. Blending rock, psychedelia and soul with Caribbean rhythms and banjo riffs, the result is a summery ferment that makes perfect holiday listening.

Due to be released on September 1st, the album follows the success of the band’s recent single ‘Slow Motion’. Describing themselves as “endowed mutants” who “make music that straddles Feist and Monty Python”, their eclectic tastes are immediately apparent.

The key to the album’s success lies with the lead singer, Monica Martin. Her voice, powerful but with a husky undertone, is redolent of Lana Del Rey: the listener is immediately drawn in to the subtle rise and fall of the melody.

The second track on the album, the amicable, ska-influenced ‘Leisure’, does what it says on the tin. The perfectly crafted melodies are at once captivating and soporific, and the inclusion of string and clarinet solos keep up the interest.

Adventurous harmonies and hazy nostalgia define ‘Slow Motion’. The hammond organ, banjos, and whistling seem opposed to the Caribbean rhythms, yet it somehow works: the song is one of the album’s catchiest.

‘Laura’, placed towards the middle of the album, is a slow, thoughtful lament lasting over six minutes. Lulling the listener into a trance, Martin’s silky voice floats, disembodied, above guitar, synth and string textures. However, the track feels too long: the interest is lost after four or five minutes.

The weakest track on the album is ‘Kingfisher’, which features endless guitar riffs and a whimsical flute solo. Attempting to straddle the line between the light-hearted and the glib, it comes down decidedly on the side of the latter.

‘In Due Time’ is a welcome acoustic addition, providing respite from the eclectic instrument combinations and allowing Martin to really show off her voice. The Caribbean vibe returns for the closer, ‘Evil’, which, despite the name, is one of the happiest, most up-beat tracks on the album.

Phox’s adventurous combinations of unusual instruments, distinctive harmonies and subtle melodies pay off. An outstanding debut, this group seem destined for great things. 

What is the strange musical organism that flourishes in the canals of Manchester? From Ian Curtis to the Gallaghers, the virus of musical talent seems to have been drunk from its waters by every generation. Thirty years after its first release, self-titled album The Smiths (1984) continues to infect listeners and musicians alike.

However, fans and critics have suggested that the album is far from the band’s best work. True, the raw beauty of Morrissey’s voice and Marr’s trademark ‘jangle’ are unjustifiably restrained. But if the listener is anywhere near being a ‘charming man’, they will have the nous to disregard these technical flaws and marvel in awe at the forms beneath.

From the simpering beauty of the album’s Delaney-inspired opener ‘Reel Around the Fountain’, to Morrissey’s mournful closing elegy to the victims of the Moors Murders ‘Suffer Little Children’, the album has few weaknesses.

I have spent hundreds of hours listening to Morrissey’s drawling warble as I writhe on the floor in a spasm of teenage angst. Thus, I can vouch for the power of the album and can stamp it with the teenage-gloomy-listener seal of approval. 

You need not believe my own reactions in order to understand the album’s magnetic effect on listeners: it has provided consistent inspiration for The Smiths’ successors. Locally, it enthralled the Gallagher brothers, prompting them to produce their own brand of lyrical whining with Morrissey’s lyrics in mind. Bridging both time and distance, Arcade Fire’s admiration is flaunted in their cover of Smiths crowd-pleaser ‘Still Ill’.

The produce of a couple of local lads creating a racket in their bedrooms continues to charm. But why is this so? Morrissey and Marr’s style is the perfect mixture of creation and reinvention, poetically engraving the kitchen-sink drama of working class life onto the grooves of vinyl. T.S. Eliot (that well-known listener of The Smiths) remarked that a good poet makes the mundane “into something better”. What Morrissey and Marr achieved was to encapsulate familiar, normative life and transform it into something more appealing.

‘Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now’ is not entirely a realist self-indulgent mope – it is laced with a carry-on sense of humour. Arguably, it is the diversity of emotions that the album inspires that allows continued pleasure and interest.

Whatever the reason for the continued success of The Smiths, it carries an admirable legacy for an album whose final cut Morrissey said “wasn’t good enough”. Morrissey and Marr’s love-child may have aged thirty years, but its sound continues to inspire as it did upon its first release.

Click here for a review of Morrissey’s latest album.

Four Stars
★★★★☆

After a relatively silent five years for one of music’s most outspoken divas, Morrissey has once again graced the musical world with his warbling tones.

For fans of Morrissey, the scene of his new album is one of familiarity. The immensely successful You Are The Quarry (2004) required a gestation period of ten years. The question is, has Moz’s break provided him with suitable breathing space? Or are the new songs of World Peace Is None Of Your Business merely the burnt remnants of the ageing ex-frontman?

It’s certain that “the passing of time”, to quote his earlier work in The Smiths, has not altered Morrissey’s topics of choice. Topical politics, dead icons, vegetarianism and mild racism are all fused together in just over 54 minutes. The album’s title track makes clear Morrissey’s sarcastic attack on government has not been cooled. Rather, it has been heated further. 

For me, the title track is somewhat cringe-worthy. Morrissey regurgitates the same-old ‘edgy’ critique on democracy, complete with a repeated cliché – “Each time you vote you support the process.”

Yet the next track, ‘Neal Cassidy Drops Dead’, is the perfect mix of humour and sorrow. The song narrates the reaction of Allen Ginsberg to the death of the beat-poet Neal Cassidy, whose “tears shampoo his beard”. At first listen, I couldn’t help chuckle at the comical rendering of the poet as a growling hairdresser. Yet, the image of tears as a beauty product is a thought-provoking image.

The album as a whole is a mixed bag. ‘Kiss Me A Lot’ isn’t awful, but neither is it particularly memorable. And album-closer ‘Oboe Concerto’ is so annoyingly self-indulgent you just want to skip the track entirely.

However, ‘Staircase At The University’ is a song with which all students can sympathise. A light-hearted tune, it humorously details the trials and the tribulations of a student struggling “to get three A’s”. Here, the Morrissey of old returns triumphal in the same strain of lyrics that ensured his Smiths-era fame, complete with joyous sing-along clapping.

And as for the penultimate track ‘Mountjoy’, the combination of lyrics about 19^th century squalor laid over acoustic guitar is surprisingly relaxing. Here, the dulcet tones of Morrissey’s voice are allowed to really shine.

In short, Morrissey’s lyrics and his band’s music continue to be successful, despite the long  absence. Listen to it a few times and I’m sure you’ll all be humming and clapping along to such cheering lines as, “If it breaks your legs then don’t come running to me.” I know I am.

We all have our inner demons. Or, in Laurence Clark’s case, just the one: a foul-mouthed cartoon monkey called Chip. Chip is projected onto the screen behind him during the show and springs to life to recreate moments when the angry, sweary or just downright obnoxious simian that lurks in us all takes over, advising Laurence (“like an evil Yoda”) to respond to ignorance and incompetence with aggression. Aggression such as, for example, heckling fellow comic Richard Herring with the age-old criticism ‘cunt!’, reducing a waiter to a sobbing wreck, biting a policeman… That sort of thing.

Why Chip? Not, as is pointed out, because he stands for the proverbial chip-on-the-shoulder, the nagging sense of inferiority that makes us all do stupid, self-assertive things from time to time. “He’s called Chip because I like chips,” Laurence says, by way of introduction. “His full name is Chip Lasagne Blowjob.”

But heaven knows Laurence has enough to be chippy about. He’s from Manchester. Married, possibly just for the purposes of our Liverpool venue and audience, to a scouser. Oh, and he has cerebral palsy which confines him to a wheelchair. The kind which prompts a flight-attendant, noting his slurred speech and erratic gestures, to reply “I think you’ve had enough already, sir,” when Laurence asks for his first beer of the journey.

As the act progresses, it becomes clear what Chip is really: he is the arch-nemesis of niceness. The scenarios discussed show the difficulties in knowing how to react in the face of faintly ignorant, patronising behaviour when the perpetrator is actually acting with the best of intentions. You know where you are with nastiness  – good, honest nastiness that doesn’t require a nuanced response of tolerance and tact. To demonstrate, Laurence asks us at the start to say so if we can’t understand what he’s on about and he’ll happily repeat himself. And when he deliberately descends into unintelligible mumbling, do any of us say a word? No – we sit in appalled silence, wondering what’s gone wrong, and are called to account for our kind dishonesty.

I’d be surprised if the entire audience caught every word, but it was less an unwillingness to risk embarrassment than a desire to not disturb the clever, coherent constructions of his comic sequences and to keep their non-stop delight rattling along. After all, aside from its sheer insightfulness, the show is a marvel of creative performance: tables are constantly and thought-provokingly turned on our perception of disability through videos, photos, animation, text and the spoken word. It’s this clever and artfully handled combination of media which Clark excels at, along with more traditional stand-up techniques – the ridiculously satisfying bit of ring-composition which returns us to Richard Herring makes me suppress a snort of laughter just thinking about it.

But don’t say: oh, he’s so brave. So inspirational. Don’t even say: this is a show which everyone should see to expand their empathy and appreciation of the capacities of the human spirit, no matter how true you think that may be. You’ll have missed the point of Moments of Instant Regret if you even remotely exaggerate Laurence’s brilliance on account of his cerebral palsy. Just take it for the dazzling and riotous performance of anger, wisdom and humour that it undoubtedly is.