Kids From Fame. Ok I know I’ve mentioned this before, but three months have passed since I first began muttering about To Arms Etc and the polished and mastered version of debut album Corner Games has now taken up residence on my stereo. My feelings haven’t changed, so I’ve dug a little deeper into my associations and I have two answers. Two good ones at that, but we’ll get to those later.
There are 11 pearls of perfection here, the sweeping epic opener Berries which gets affectionately jabbed out of the way by pole vaulting love song Isinbayeva, surely the first of its kind in subject matter and scanning! Kids In The Sticks is the obvious single with its pumping piano intro and fat guitars, but it’s not the best track here. Lets dive a little deeper – with our chests bursting – to pearl number 8, the Lao-Tzu of the collection if you will (although maybe a little prettier), Little Domino.
“Sit tight, Little Domino! Don’t swoon like a dame” opens vocalist and songwriter Charles Campbell-Jones, amid stuttering West End piano’s and chorus lines before the “best guitar riff in ages” grabs a hold of proceedings and takes us off to Rocky Horror and Neil Young. It’s a gem of a track, which mystifies me as to its subject matter, but has become best friends with the repeat button. “How do, Mister Dusty Cat? Such auspicious days!”. Indeed.
Elsewhere, the lonely road song of M.B.F.F. (My Best Friends Floor) is a gorgeously melancholy mix of lost love and vibes, lush instrumental Super-Radiance is Neil Cowley meets Carol King and Drawing Near (not the most immediate track on the album) is a gently infectious anthem to the banal beauty of inner city life.
So why the Kids From Fame thing Dan? Well, it could be that To Arms’ mix of rolling piano melodies, glam rock guitar riffs, trippy flutes, delicately croaky vocals and skewed poetry reminds me of a time when life was altogether more romantic. When The California Highway Patrol touchingly replied to my request for a job (aged 
with an enormous parcel full of application forms and lush smelling glossy guides. When the only issue worth worrying about was whether Kirsten Skidmore thought I was a good kisser.
A time when, and here’s where we’re going, Kids From Fame would burst into our living room every Friday night, exploding with optimism, hope and just reward. A time before school became about my future, instead of just that day’s adventures. Before Dad left Mum. Before my first broken heart.
Equally it could be that Corner Games sounds like the album the kids from Fame could have made, raising them from classic TV show to classic album status with the whole nation adoringly behind them. Why? Because all the hope, optimism and romance I mentioned above is here, simple and unabashed, with enough life weary wit and self aware recounting thrown in by Charles Campbell-Jones to keep the sugar flies off. It’s all curiously familiar, like walking into a house you once lived in, to the point where I’d swear I already had this album, until it turned up in the post.
Debut albums often get heralded as “a statement of intent” or even “a call to arms” (I know), but this is an altogether gentler introduction. To Arms Etc don’t break any new ground, but then with our relentless charge to find something brand new, it’s important to remember that our past comes with us to.
Those of you who’ve read my occasional MuRamblings will already have known a little about To Arms Etc – that they’ve already graced our Ignition! nights and are “worth a tickle” (my summary last time). Those of you who’ve been cornered by me after a few Whiskey Sours will know that in fact I’ve developed quite a soft spot for the Arms and will gladly champion them as a band of great importance.
Take heed of the drunken me. I am guileless intoxicant.
Dan MuHead
‘Corner Games’ is out now on Bronzerat Records
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