Kelman Press

Kelman ‘The Happiest Man Alive’.

Not strictly out for general consumption for a few weeks but hey what the hell Kelman are after all one of the true great hidden secrets in an age of charlatans and talent less wannabe’s whose only concern is trying to find that crucial leg up onto whatever bandwagon is decreed hip for this week only. Kelman (brothers Gooderham – Wayne and Marc) you’d imagine don’t subscribe to this nonsense, it would after all have been the easy option to take, the bright lights, the plaudits and the inevitable spiral downwards into obscurity. Kelman have never sought to take the easy option, it’s simply not in their vocabulary. In a previous life Kelman were Baptiste, a band deserving their position at the upper reaches of any ‘great unsung heroes of the last 10 years’ list, in their collective hands existed the power to caress and crucify and this they did with every superlative you could wish to aim across several singles and an album. Given my previous experience with all things Baptiste / Kelman I do have to admit to a wry smile forming when I noted the title of this releases lead cut ‘The Happiest Man Alive’ – well bugger me with a big stick I thought - was this some kind of impishly perverse sense of twisted humour at play here. Fear not the answers a resolute no. ‘The Happiest Man Alive’ teases affectionately as it bathes you in a twinkling parade of gently strummed trickle-forming acoustics, subtle bell chimes, crushing lyrics and the soft glow of a shy like whispering melody. Through its stripped down bare boned presentation the arrangements are acutely simplified, the tension as a whole frail and fragile providing a delicate union between the timeless and more softer moments of Velvet Underground’s back catalogue and those all to crucial early career outings by Belle and Sebastian, yet scratch below the fine surface and there’s the maelstrom of drunken introspection to tear at your emotions piece by piece. Over on the flip the sweetly caressing ‘Undone’ appears and disappears in an instant like a stolen moment leaving in its trail the ghostly memories of a measured though numbing grace, clearly echoing to find a kinship with Hefner’s more hurt moments, its a bottomless pit of emotion that holds dearly an arresting array of spectrally lined bruised perfection. Class, depth and sensitivity are rare commodities these days - to have one is to be blessed with good fortune, to have two is be considered exceptional but to have all three is to be something utterly special. Kelman are in the latter it’s just that you don’t realise it yet.