Band : The Duke Spirit

Album title : Neptune

Label : Love Token LLP/ You Are Here

Distributor : PIAS

Release date : 04/02/2008

Release : CD

The core of   this British "Alternative Rock" quintet (see below for the reason of the brackets) got together when Liela Moss (vocals, percussion, Lowrey organ, piano, harmonica) and Luke Ford (guitar & vocals) met at an art college in Cheltenham. Moving to London together, they began writing songs and soon convinced mutual friend Toby Butler (bass, guitar, Vox organ & backing vocals) to join 'em in performing as Solomon . At that time they shared a flat with several other people who were trying to make it is various facets of media, and it turned out that one Dan Higgins (a graphics artist who would later design all sleeves for the band's Cuts Across The Land album and its resulting singles) happened to be a guitar player in search for musically like-minded people to make music with. Of course they struch a chord eventually (and Dan has learned to expand his instrumental capabilities to autoharp, Vox & Hammond organ, as well as placing the occasional backing vocal). Shortly after a chance meeting with drummer Olly Betts resulted in the completion of this band's line-up, with the new name The Duke Spirit first being heard in early 2003. However, a double-A sided 7-inch single containing the songs "Piano" and "Being The Devil" was still released in early 2003 under the old monicker.

The band would pursue a healthy singles release schedule during their earlier life, releasing the (limited to 500 copies) double-A sided 7-inch Darling You're Mean/ Bottom Of The Sea in May, followed by the 6-track "Roll, Spirit, Roll EP (available as CD and 12" vinyl) in October 2003 on the City Rockers imprint...making their live debut in between. Normally, City Rockers were to release the band's full-length debut in September of 2004, but they ran out of monetary sources in the Spring of that same year. After a short time of indecisiveness, the band then signed to Polydor subsidiary Loog Records , who's first releases of the band were again an assortment of singles (June 2004's Dark Is Light Enough issued both on vinyl and CD, the latter version containing two other tracks than the 7-inch's B-side; October's Cuts Across The Land , again available as vinyl and CD, with the latter not only having another "B-side", but also including 3 DVD videos; February 2005's Lion Trip , as 7-inch and CD, the latter again...and with 3 videos – also released in the US containing "Bottom Of The Sea" and the regular video for the title track). May 2005 was very busy as far as releases are concerned, because not only was the 5-track EP Releaved The Distressed released (CD only) in Australia (containing 3 unreleased tracks besides "Lion Rip" & "Dark Is Light Enough" , again making this a collectable, like most of the other items issued by this band), there was also the UK single (7-inch and CD with different "B-side" and additional videos) Love Is An Unfamiliar Name , and the full-length Cuts Across The Land ...which was not only released in the UK and Europe, but also in Australia and Canada. Although disposing already of a very nice collection of songs, it has to be said to the band's credit that only 5 of the 12 songs were previously released. In the US the album would be issued through Startime Records , distributed by Vagrant on March 3 rd of the following year, year which the band also spent for the biggest part touring the North-American continent! Before the American adventure however, UK single Cuts Across The Land (issued as limited edition etched & one-track 7-inch and EPCD with 2 bonus cover songs).

Not surprisingly, 2006 was a very slow year for TDS record collectors, the only release being the downloadable EP (and limited 7-inch single, released through Velo Recordings in December) Covered In Love , a collection of songs originally written by some of the band's recently deceased musical heroes and heroins (Arthur Lee , Desmond Dekker , and Jesse Mae Hemphill ). In early 2007 the band signed to new independent Anglo/ Canadian label You Are Here . July 9 th saw the release of Unkle album War Stories , containing the Unkle / TDS collaboration track "Mayday" , recorded at Chris Goss ' Rancho De La Luna studio in Joshua Tree, California in May 2006. And it's thére that the band would return to record their sophomore album in April 2007.However, and again in TDS tradition, running up to the album we saw the late October release of the 4-track Ex Voto EP , which was available both as 10-ich vinyl, EPCD, and download. January of THIS year gave us the The Step And The Walk single, issued as 7-inch with a remix on the B-side, and as CD coupled to "Echo Song" .

The latter's title track, along with the first two songs off the Ex-Voto EP (namely "Lassoo" and "Dog Roses" ) can also be found on the new 12-track album (which has a total playing time of 37:22). When it came down to come up with a description of the fivesome's hypnose-inducing music, I found myself at a temporary loss for words...until I happenstanced upon the band's page at Wikipedia (which is also where I got quite a bit of my info) who state that TDS 's sound "...has an allegiance with the early Noise Rock and Grunge bands of the late '80s and early '90s such as My Bloody Valentine , Sonic Youth , and the Pixies (a band The Duke Spirit has covered live) and also displays a primal take on Rock & Roll, Soul, and Blues allying them to groups such as The Gun Club , Spiritialized , The Cramps , and Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds ..."! Well, once I'd gone through the meaning of thàt description, I indeed started to comprehend where the elemenys that make up TDS 's slightly Psychedelic touch came from. But there's also a couple of songs where the band take on an even more Soulful stance, throwing a section of horn blowers into the whole. For yoùr audio pleasures, surf to myspace.com/thedukespirit, where you'll find a total of 4 songs off the ambum (including "Dog Roses" which was taken from Ex-Voto EP , which comes down to the same). As a bonus you also get an mp3-file of "Echo Song" (see above), and videos (one for "The Step And The Walk" , a live rendition of "Lassoo" recorded at the Henry Rollins Show , and a video of the band's appearance at Radio 6 earlier this year, during which they performed "The Step And The Walk" and album closer "Sovereign" ). Liela certainly has the pérfect slightly hoarse voice to fill in the vocal part of things, and with the beautiful harmony backings she gets, the overall sound is simply gréat!

In spite of relatively little advertising based promotion The Duke Spirit , who started out as a "word of mouth" band, have received positive acclaim and increasing success thanks to their heavy touring schedule both in the UK, US, and Europe, along the way playing some high-profile support slots (such as for Kabasian Mercury Rev , Queens Of The Stone Age , Razorlight and Yeah Yeah Yeahs to name but a few). In fact, they are at this very moment again touring the US, and will be back for a European tour starting May 23 rd . For details on that, check the Myspace page, but I dó wanna stress to my country fellows that TDP will be playing a headline show at Brussel's Botanique on May 27th !

Top class act...top class album...deserving of a top class nomination into that beloved "Best Album Of 2008"-list of mine! Ooohhh...before I forget: dear vinyl junkies, as of March 4 th a limited edition of 300 vinyl copies of the album was made available, so rush, rush, rush to get your copy!

98/100

Tony.