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Demo Review
The Great Distance The Great DistanceSwine Maid
Article written by
Matt H - Jul 25, 2005
The Great Distance’s stated aim is to take British alt-country in a new direction. Leaving aside the rather niche nature of the ambition, the question you are left with is not so much “Do they?” or “Where?” as “Why?”. To pick some reasons:
Computer Moon swoops and dives like a seagull after your chips and is just as irritating. But at least it’s different - the laid back blues pootle of Easy River shows the record’s true colours. (What are they? Why, shades of Gray, natch.) There’s the pointless drum twattery in Heartfelt Peace, and Tom Waits for No Man is a crap joke, badly executed (I’m tempted to go round and scrub their mouths out with soap, not as a punishment you understand, just ‘cos that way they might even sound vaguely like the great man). And there’s Childless Children’s Performers – its vaguely cruel characterisation a pale echo of the American Music Club, with Eitzel’s empathetic croon replaced by a curiously empty whine.
In Computer Moon they put it to us: “This song doesn’t have much of a chorus; And I’m not sure about the verse; I’m just singing about my angel; Or is it something else that makes this so much worse?” Well, actually, yes. You’re accomplished but you’re dreary and you’re foisting it on us. The Great Distance isn’t really far enough.