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music: album reviews
Flipron - Gravity Calling (Tiny Dog)
UK release date: 10 November 2008
4 stars
Flipron - Gravity Calling

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track listing

1. Mavis
2. Dreams Of Wealth And Power
3. Gravity Calling
4. How It Works
5. Book Of Lies
6. Scoundrel's Apology Almost
7. Orpheus Inconsolable
8. Tropical Disease
9. Mess It Up
10. Winding Up The Clockwork Morning Through The Night
11. Zombie Blues
12. Something Lost
Eccentrics are great aren't they? It's a way of life that seems to be on the decline in this country - you hardly ever see a genuine eccentric these days. It's all too easy to act a bit weird these days, but therein lies the trick - the minute you try is the minute you are no longer a bona fide eccentric. Flipron are clearly not trying.

Back in the late '60s and '70s Flipron would have been just another band to stick alongside the likes of Syd Barrett or Sparks, but today the chances of finding a truly eccentric band is like striking oil - an ever increasing rarity.

On the surface Flipron aren't actually that unusual at all. Gravity Calling is crammed full of songs that sound like you've heard them before in a nostalgic kind of way. As the album plays through you can imagine walking through the backstreets with your breath hanging in the air and happening upon a pub that you never knew existed.

Inside, a bar band is knocking out some old honky tonk piano, smoke billows from under the door and silhouettes hang in the window, their glasses swaying and held high threatening to spill their contents everywhere. You walk in, have the best night of your life, and find the band playing is called Flipron.

So, Flipron are not really pushing the boundaries back in any way shape or form, but they are writing classic little rock songs that take you on unexpected, winding journeys. Comparisons are easy to make, The Kinks spring easily to mind, as do Blur, but to these ears Flipron sound like The Sensational Alex Harvey Band.

At times singer Jesse Budd can play the wild eyed rock singer, and at others he can whisper his stories into your ear as if he had written them just for you. Flipron exist in a world where classic rock is pulled into amorphous shapes. Songs become stories, and Hammond organs and pianos lead the choir. The guitars take you surfing via a bah mitzvah and by the time you wind up at Zombie Blues they've dragged you into a wake that you didn't know you should attend but you're damn glad you did.

Ultimately Gravity Calling is a damn near perfect record. It makes no promises and has no pretensions, Flipron make exuberant playful rock songs that seem to have come out almost imperceptibly skewed. There's something comforting in knowing that Flipron exist and can make music that sounds ever so slightly touched, this is an album that warms your insides and pleases the ears.

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end of year feature
musicOMH's Top 50 Albums Of 2009
From the nearly 700 albums we reviewed this year, which did our writers love the most?
Introduction
50-41 | 40-31 | 30-21
20-11 | 10-4 | 1-3



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EXTERNAL LINKS
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