Discussing topics like religion, love, death, drugs, life, and disease is risky business, particularly within a musical milieu that sounds as though it was influenced by a hotchpotch of Tim Burton, pantomime, bowler hats, and musical theatre. Yet Coates does it marvelously, invoking a sense of earnestness and shade in conjunction with his dry smartness.
Perhaps the most compelling facet of The Real Tuesday Weld is how rapidly and naturally he moves from realism to surrealism in a musical context. A track like “Dorothy Parker Blue” is emotional, gentle, and stirring. Smoothly, Coates slips into a hopping-mad spectacle of a ditty in “Cloud Cuckooland” and rolls deliciously into the “jazz hands” pace of “Kix.” The transitions flow like a dream, stylishly.
In the end, that’s really what The London Book of the Dead is about.
Deconstructing this bit into a selection of songs degrades the process, I think. Instead, listen for the transitions, the mood changes, the enthusiasm, the euphoria, the fashion, and the dark edges. The Real Tuesday Weld has put together a piece of art that is pensive without being insufferable and dark without being disheartening. It is an exciting, imaginative album.
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