The Divine Comedy Album: “Casanova [Bonus Disc]”

And yet, this gem makes me feel like I have. It's like Neil Hannon invented a brand new sound system, and called it "Eurovision". It makes you capable of catching every melody before the first verse is over. It compells you to follow the sardonic storytelling. It forces you to whistle and tap to the tunes. And then, it begins with what it does best: it surrounds you, gets under your pores, and places you in the middle of that half-lit street, staring at one of the stunning girls at the other side of the window of that coffee shop.

Atmosphere, they call it, and here it explodes. From the laughter at the beggining of "Something for the Weekend", to the horno-graphic climax in "A Woman of the World", going through the double morality of "The Frog Princess", this is love, seduction and a game of push-pull temptation at its best.

Better yet, the album (at least the edition I have does) includes "The Casanova Companion", collecting some songs from previous ones, as well as a couple of unreleased live performances, including a magnificent version of the American Music Club's "Johnny Mathis's Feet". Here, "Tonight we fly" got hold of me. A perfectly crafted tune, which can make you cry on a lonely friday night, laugh with the wind in your hair on saturday morning with the car rooftop down, or find you reminiscing on a sunday afternoon. Kind of a wild card.

Sometimes, there's more to the flat, cold physical appearance of a disc.

This is a rather extraordinary CD: a concept album (wait! don't stop reading yet!) loosely based on the life of Casanova, but "set" mainly in modern England. An eccentric, epic, cynical, sad, and lust-drenched record, it stands out amongst the current crop of English Beatles sound-alikes and ambient/jungle/triphoppers. Casanova is odd, manic, meditative, self-indulgent, and very funny. It's also full of good music and great tunes. After opening with two absolutely killer pop songs, awash with hooks, the album becomes steadily stranger and more imaginative, with lush orchestrations, quotations from La Marseillaise, celestas, and lyrics pointing to the emptiness of a life led in sensuousness, but without love ("I don't love anybody, that stuff is just a waste of time/Your place or mine?"). This latter aspect is summarized in the penultimate track, a five and a half minute Burt Bacharach-style instrumental that begins with a BBC presenter list of credits and then builds towards a crescendo that it never quite reaches, fizzling out at the end. Casanova was released in Europe almost 2 years ago, but it still sounds a lot fresher than almost anything else that's around. About a minute into the first track, Neil Hannon (who is the Divine Comedy) lecherously tells two giggling girls "Oh come on, you know you want to" in a horribly smarmy upper class English accent. And the thing is, after this, I do. P.S. Look out for the Divine Comedy's Scott Walker-esque E.P., A Short Album About Love. END

Put simply, Neil Hannon is a deity of the highest order. Buy this CD just for "Tonight we fly" simply the best song I've heard in, oooooooh, ages and ages. This song seduced my girlfriend, reduced my parents to tears and stayed on repeat play in my CD player for about six months. BUY IT!!!!

Neil Hannon is an amazing musician that blends Scott Walker, Burt Bacharach, the literary wit of Noel Coward, and then throws in a bit of REM and Smiths pop for the good ol' days. But this is totally unique, funny, serious, intelligent Brit music hall pop that'll resonate in your head for days after you hear it.

Like Momus but with more heart. Nick Currie, aka Momus, actually told Neil way back when that he was doomed too toil away as a should-be cult artist like him. Neil was apparently not to pleased, and within very little time totally proved Nick wrong with this album where he cultivates a swinging European Serge Gainsbourg-ish persona that started his rapid ascent.

I saw Neil Hannon perform on the Divine Comedy's first US tour, and then interviewed him during the second. He called Michael Nyman "punk strings."

As an endnote, producer of the decade Nigel Godrich is doing the upcoming album with Neil Hannon, Joby Talbot, and the whole TDC crew.

Neil Hannon has done it - big time! He's given me an album of the best ever! I really have to say that without this album, my life just wouldn't have been the same! Thank you, Neil! And I feel really sorry for those who didn't think this was a good album....