ICECREAM HANDS – GIANT FOX PINEAPPLE TREE: REVIEW
- Bernard Zuel
- 11 minutes ago
- 2 min read
ICECREAM HANDS
Giant Fox Pineapple Tree (Independent)
THE PRODUCER OF most Icecream Hands albums, the elusive – has anyone ever seen him or her? Is it true he/she is a four-men-in-one godhead sent into the world to guide us to salvation? Why does she/he smell so good? – East Van Parks, knows that you don’t need to be big to be all-encompassing.
It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, after all, it’s the way you brush the fur. Or something like that.
You can bring the strings without swamping the sound but still adding lustre and depth. You can deploy the guitars without charging the trenches but still feel like you’ve got some punch. You can up the keyboards to some prominence without channelling Booker T but still bring some soul. You can double or triple your harmonies without turning into the Swingle Singers but still caress the ear. You can slow down the tempo without losing your energy but still savour the tenderness.
You can make a full-service album while still sounding nimble.
Lesson learned, as on Giant Fox Pineapple Tree – an album title which can serve as a cognitive test for fans of a certain age (yeah baby I aced it!) – the fur is brushed smoothly so it feels like being wrapped in goodness, but still there’s bite in the pleasures, like the sharpness in the acoustics of Tambourine Mountain or the half-buried piano in Taxi Cab that feels like a nagging reminder between waves of strings. There is a low-level but persistent strand of melancholy - life has had its complications since the last Icecream Hands album – but each upward turn feels like curtains pulled back, as in the ascension to the end of the chorus of Mercy, a song of forgiveness beginning with yourself, or the wide spaces that get filled with voices, guitars, more voices and parental joy in Back On The Road.
And then there’s the bar room-meets-the-living room buoyancy of Here And Now’s guide to life, the choppy, almost Chinn/Chapman drive of Don’t Let The Party Fade Out, and the way Leaving Nobody Out brings Vanda and Young, Richard Clapton and Paul Hewson to some perfect ‘70s moment.
And why not? Good pop music doesn’t discriminate. The clue is in the opening line. “Welcome strangers, welcome fans/Friends, Romans and countryman … winners and losers, champion.” It’s open to all, it carries us without effort, and that who’s gonna stop me doing it? outrageous rhyme of countryman and champion is no mere quirk: East Van Parks’ charges – now officially a five-piece – might be small dogs in the scheme of things, but they aren’t above having fun while nipping at your heels.
Most of all, there’s soul-enhancing good here. To quote East Side’s California brother, Van Dyke, "I think a good melody can be evocative. It can remind you of someplace that you've been. And if a melody jars memory, I think it serves a great purpose".
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Icecream Hands' Giant Fox Pineapple Tree is out today.
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