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Divine Comedy.
The first Divine Comedy album I heard was 'Casanova' in 1996 in which Neil Hannon - singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and sole actual member - cast himself as a louche lothario, smoking, drinking and shagging his way through eleven tracks that mixed everything from classic pop songs to soaring orchestral balladry. I was immediately smitten with the album (and its predecessors, 1993's 'Liberation' and 1994's 'Promenade') and have followed the band ever since.
To be honest, however, the last few Divine Comedy records left me a bit cold, especially 2001's strangely restrained 'Regeneration.' At the time Hannon declared it the first album by The Divine Comedy: The Band, the seven-member group that he'd been touring with for the previous few years. That band was dissolved before the brand new 'Absent Friends,' an album that seems to have much more warmth and heart to it - or at least, its creator is doing a better group of faking it.
"I would never fake it!" Hannon declares, laughing. "No, I drew a similar conclusion about 'Regeneration,' only maybe a year or two later. Philosophically it was right to [form the band], and theoretically it would work, but I just came away from it feeling that it didn't reflect my personality - but then, I was trying to explore the personality of my band. In the end I think it was just a little confusing for everybody.
"For this one I really wanted to rediscover what it was that excited me about making music in the first place, and the sound that gets me going - and reflects my soul, I suppose - is that orchestral kind of vibe, and all the songs seemed to point in that direction. To be honest, technically, I think this one pisses over a lot of the previous records."
Appropriate, then, that the only other member to return is keyboardist/orchestral arranger Joby Talbot, who has worked on every Divine Comedy album (and wrote the music for the freakishly great BBC comedy series 'The League Of Gentlemen,' fact fans). Hannon is quick to praise his collaborator, "although it's very much a dual operation: I sketch out what I want, and it's quite specific, although when I put strings in it's in a big lump - 'Laaaaa! Here's the strings!' and I get him to sort it out. Sometimes it's more specific, sometimes less."
The other thing that colours this album was the birth of Hannon's first child. The theme of fatherhood is strong, most explicitly on Charmed Life: a song of love to his newborn daughter Willow. "Maybe it wouldn't have done if she wasn't so cute," he laughs. "I heard that some people were grumbling 'oh god, he's writing songs about his family,' but unfortunately I've always tried to be reasonably honest in my writing and tried to reflect what's going on in my life - for example, 'Casanova' reflected what was going on in my life..."
That's just scary.
"I know!" he laughs uproariously. "I exaggerated a touch, mind, but this one is no different. I feel like I can't ignore something that's changed my life irrevocably - but then, I wouldn't sit down and think 'hmm, what has happened in my life? I shall write songs about it!' It just ends up happening whether you like it or not."
He's not kidding. Leaving Today has a father wrenching himself away from the nursery door before a business trip, while Come Home Billy Bird's protagonist is rushing to get home in time for his son's first football game. Taking a punt, I suggest that Hannon might have been revisiting some of his feelings about his own father whilst writing some of the songs.
"Really?" he says, puzzled. "Hmmmm... I've had a great relationship with my dad and my parents have both been terribly supportive. Obviously I've written a couple of songs that have, er, 'interested' him in terms of religious content [Hannon's father is the Right Reverend Brian Hannon], but we have to agree to differ on religious points... But now you mention it, growing up, he wasn't around a lot. The job was pretty full-on. He was a minister of a Protestant church in the seventies, two minutes from the Bogside in Londonderry [Northern Ireland] - it was, er, quite busy. But he was around at the weekends. Sometimes."
He pauses. "There are a few professions where you can never get them to leave - like, after church you'd just want to get back and watch the rugby and he was busily talking to such-and-such - oh, the worst one, though, was choir practice. I was in the choir and I enjoyed it very much: unfortunately it was on a Thursday night and it totally clashed with Top Of The Pops. I only ever saw the last fifteen minutes of Top Of The Pops because he was waffling to some curate or bursor or somebody." He laughs, coming out of his reveries. "God, you've touched a nerve here!"
Returning to more mundane matters, I'm surprised to hear that an Australian tour might not be entirely out of the question. "Believe me, I would be in Australia in a flash if the opportunity arose. But you're a fair way away, and trying to work out where to play and with what number of musicians... We keep waiting for Ben Folds to tour so we can support him - I did a three month tour with him in the States and I've been badgering him to do an Australian tour ever since."
So Mr Folds, if you're reading this: surely you've got some mail to collect or something?
Andrew P Street
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'Absent Friends' is out now through Parlophone/EMI.
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