Post One Five Oh!!! The Mutton Birds' Envy Of Angels--Best Album You Never Heard

If you're on your high horse....

The Mutton Birds were one of the best bands you probably never heard of. I have to credit the Big Takeover for finding out about them. I'm surprised that I didn't know about them sooner being an avid collector of musical Kiwiania. Envy Of Angels is a superb mature pop album loaded with beautiful complex melodies and intelligent well crafted lyrics. The album was produced by the illustrious Hugh Jones and that only further adds a crisp bright texture to an already stellar set of songs. The music here is as good as anything Crowded House or the Go-Betweens did in their illustrious careers. The music business works in mysterious ways indeed. They are no secret in the Antipodes, better known in the European Union. In other places their music is treasured by select initiates.

The Mutton Birds never put out an album in America, though this album was released on EMI in Australia, and licensed in Europe to Virgin, big labels.

They never did a tour in the United States. The fact that Don McGlashan of the Mutton Birds was performing a short set at the Big Takeover's Anniversary party in July was one of the main motivators for me to haul down to Brooklyn for the show. Even though it was not a Mutton Birds reunion, it was really a long deferred personal thrill to see this great songwriter performing 20 feet away from me, strumming on acoustic guitar and demonstrating his prowess on the French Horn. When he broke into the euphoric ballad Anchor Me I definitely considered myself one lucky punk.

So why was America left off the Mutton Birds guest list? It probably was some quirk of the recording industry at the time. If I was to overanalyze, it might have to do with Terroir--maybe they were deemed too Kiwi to sell mass quantities here, in the same way that the great mid-period albums of The Kinks were deemed "too English" for the American market. But that's probably an overstatement which is probably true of their earlier albums, with literary songs like A Thing Well Made, or with a local flavor like Wellington or Dominion Road. Great songs, endearing to their countrymen, but maybe not the songs that would translate to a big global cash payout. But I think that with the right promotion, Envy of Angels would have sold well here.

If Crowded House was in steady rotation on MTV, you would think that they would have been scouring the North and South Islands for similar product.

In the final analysis, let me just say that Envy is one of the better pop albums of the 90's, with beautiful chiming guitars, sophisticated song structures with underlying complex and sometimes dark lyrics. Certainly some of the love songs are simply unparalleled. While You Sleep Sounds like a section from a chapter in a novel set to music. People have been composing songs like these since before we were writing things down, and he manages to put a new spin on things with evocative imagery, taking the personal and making it universal. I wish I wrote this.

While you sleep

Coiled up like a spring

I remember everything

from the first day

Summer flowers

Shimmering in the street

Plastic sandals on your feet in the doorway

You looked so hungry

You couldn't stand still

You made everything in the flat

Look so cheap

I showed you round

Forgetting when to breathe

And that's still the way I feel

When I watch you when you sleep.

While you sleep

The Earth revolves in Space

Ships and planes they race

Towards tomorrow.

You took the room

And pretty soon I knew

That we all would fly to you

Like little arrows.

Fancy dressers

Queens and jesters

Throwing glances your way.

In the street

Never worries me

Cause I'm the one that gets to be

Beside you when you sleep.

Once on a still grey, motorway day

We jumped the fence and we lay

Watching all the expensive people

Speeding away.

Just before the sun's up

The wallpaper lights up

And another car climbs the hill.

They will keep whatever plans I've made

They'll wait another day

When I will tell you things that now

I only tell you while you sleep.

Wow! In addition to Don McGlashan, the Mutton Birds are Ross Burge (drums), Alan Gregg (bass,vocals,keyboard) and David Long (guitar). Alan Gregg found the group Mushroom after The Mutton Birds disbanded. On Envy of Angels he also was the author of the irresistible classic Come Around, which is probably the most radio ready pop song on the album. One of the best songs on Envy.



Of course there is the aforementioned Anchor Me, half love ballad, half sea chantey. The whole song is effused with nautical imagery, and the impression is that the person Don McGlashan is singing about is at a distance. Another of my favorites here is Trouble With You, with a muted dark verses crescendoing into a sublime falsetto chorus. Also notable is the infectious kinetic April. Other standouts include She's Been Talking, which was released as a single, the strong opening number Straight To Your Head, and the titular dramatic closing song Envy of Angels.

If you are from New Zealand or Australia I'm probably preaching to the choir here. But if you like the bands aforementioned in this post, there is no reason why you shouldn't own and cherish this album. Ditto for their other albums, including Rain Steam & Speed, which is nearly as great as Envy of Angels. And Don McGlashan has a few nifty solo albums on Arch Hill Records. Some of the best songwriting of the 1990's is on this excellent Cd. This album is one of personal favorites and I could not recommend this more highly.