Album Review. Viking Moses - Swollen & Small.

Neutral Milk Hotel are one of the most overlooked bands of the last ten years. Led by the exceptionally talented and now very low key Jeff Mangum, they were seemingly loved only by those who knew a thing or two. A hidden gem, waiting to be uncovered. Which, if you haven’t – yet - you should do - now.

Viking Moses – Brendon Massei, mainly - are even less well known. Quite what the point is of this venture (Viking Moses doing songs by Neutral Milk Hotel) with pals Steve Gullick and The Virgin Passages, is debatable. They’re not exactly bringing NMH to a wider audience.

So a personal project doubling up as a prelude to the re-issue of NMH’s debut record - On Avery Island - seems the most likely explanation. Massei proclaims Mangum his greatest influence. Covering him then, was probably a pleasure.

Not that you’d know it. For there are only four songs here (three from On Avery Island, one from second record In The Aeroplane Over The Sea) and all but one are from the gloomier, death obsessed and more abstract side of the back catalogue. NMH were never exactly happy, but miserable people have levels of miserable-ness - and this is pretty fucking miserable.

First off, the originally vaguely high tempo-ed opener “You’ve Passed” is turned from the fuzzy, folky twang it once was into a much slower, shorter, acoustic model. The vocals pretty much just imitate, but the lack of background noise means greater emphasis is put on the skewed vocal melodies disguised in the prototype.

Much the same is achieved with second track “Gardenhead/Leave Me Alone”: fuzz reduced, melodies exposed and the energy flattened. Instead of the lively, rolling riff of the original, the guitar track is reduced to a repetitive garden-shed clunking. And again, the lack of noisy accompaniment highlights the bizarre, dreamy lyrics. Check these baby’s out: Leave me alone, for you know this isn't the first time/In fact this is twice in a row /That the angels have slipped through our landslide/And filled up our garden with snow/And I don't wish to taste of your insides /Or to call out your name through my phone. It’s not exactly 9-til-5 lamenting.

“Where You’ll Find Me Now” is a fairly straightforward cover of a fairly straightforward NMH song (it’s relative, obviously, none of it is that straightforward). But the same can’t be said for “Holland 1945” - the solitary track from the In The Aeroplane Over The Sea album.

Viking Moses take it from what was essentially a punky, pop song based around an obsession with Anne Frank and stretch it out into a stringy, pingy, hillbilly Americana number complete with backing vocals and a distant harmonica. It - and all these songs - is much sadder than the original.

One thing to be taken into account with Mangum is that he’s a song-writer of the Jeff Buckley, Bob Dylan ilk. Not in sound, at all, but in that his creations have no ‘way’ to be played. Everything is open to interpretation.

Key lyrics, special notes, rhythms and structures. Mangum himself played around incessantly. Massei then, is simply offering us his interpretations. I hope for his sake he’s not always in this mood, for that would be a dark place indeed. Instead I’m going to imagine these people, just doing their thang, and not really giving a fuck if anybody likes it or not. It’s not essential, but it’s a great collectible.