Roger (R) – It falls upon me to guide our readers through the downuplands of this strange weather, otherwise known as The Heart Is In The Body, the new exercise in aural semaphore emanating from behind Richard Larcombe’s excitable brow under the guise of Lost Crowns. Assisting me in this not inconsiderable task I have my diminutive colleague Phil. He’s from Wales. Phil?
Phil (P) – Remember we were talking about the first album? We saw it in allegorical terms as Gentle Giant’s mythical and psychotic descendant. It has probably always existed, locked deep in the dungeons of Richard Larcombe’s Mind Palace. But he released it! The Lost Crowns Monster broke the shackles that impaired its freedom.
R – Yes, and I surmised that since that day it been running up and down the High Street, knocking all the bins over.
P – Yes! And this second album is to their debut album as Mothra is to Gojira. Maybe I’m now just used to the debut album (not really), but The Heart Is In The Body could just make Every Night Something Happens sound like Baby Shark. Well, it is relentless and difficult, so to those who don’t like amazingly complex music, it might.
Just as before, the whole band sounds fantastic on this recording, do they not?
R – These players are all el fabbo for sure, but that drummer chap Keepsie…by crikey, he must be an octopus! He isn’t, obviously, as we’ve seen him behind his drumkit.
Let’s get to the task at hand. This first song falls out of the sky right in our laps. It’s called I Might Not. Richard tells us that the germ of this album arose from a wassail of out-of-synch folk players, convened during a COVID lockdown Zoom meeting. If only my work meetings were half as discombobulating! Apparently, on this recording Richard picks up all manner of folksie instruments he’d not played before, because he could, the lucky fella! Just take a look at those credits. Rhodri isn’t far behind!
I Might Not, like most other songs on this disorienting waxing appears to change musical subjects at will within the same bar. Hey! Look! There’s a bit that I’m sure references Sound As Colour, or did I imagine it? This seemingly directional randomness concept should present no problem to you, eh Phil?
P – The opening bars of I Might Not sound far more accessible than just about anything from the first album. Initially. But hard as this might be to comprehend, I suspect Every Day Something Happens was just Richard testing the water, even lulling us into a false sense of security.
R – Why?
P – Why? Well, a comparison with other music might be useful. But no. It would be misrepresenting the music to try to nail down any influences. In fact, this music may well be a new and future strange influence for the coming generations of musicians!
R – There’s a song ‘ere called Did Look A Fool. “Things look unfamiliar, things look new” sings Richard. He’s right there, innit? As you say, THIITB makes EDSH look, well, not normal, but certainly of a more sensible cut of trouser than one would ever have assumed. This shiny new baby is dancing about just out of reach, I cannae get a hold of it, the slippery beastie…
P – Throughout the album, I fail to successfully analyse it. I used to pride myself in being able to work out the so-called complex time signatures of certain progressive rock bands from the seventies and eighties, but don’t try counting the bars for the last minute or of the first one – therein lies madness.
The brain-mushing complexity may make you feel as if the band is battering you over the head with their virtuosity. None of this matters, just go with it! Then the blend of the rhythm section, keyboards, woodwinds and the plinky guitar, furnishing the music with unique properties, could make you grin like a loon.
R – This loon is grinning! And I just knocked another bin over. Lost Crowns do things with melody that should be only theoretically possible.
P – Richard’s choice of melodies and lead vocals and the band’s harmonies perfectly complement the preternatural combination of notes. If you’ve followed the band and have seen them live, then you may have become accustomed to the unorthodox choice of instrumentation. Yes, there are vocals, drums, bass and keyboards, but a plethora of other instrumentation, played expertly by top people…. TOP people… are evident.
R – Yes – we find theremin, Charlie’s bowed double bass (and his normal one), bagpipes, bassoon, wind instruments, string sections, all manner of things weaving their magic on this lysergic excursion.
P – I’m particularly enamoured of Charlie’s bass lines and Keepsie’s drumming. They form the anchor of this musical adventure. But there are also some lovely bits of atmospheric sound design, albeit abruptly replaced with the surreal. Lyrically – I can’t even begin to…!
R – Lyrically? Well, you have some fabulous word salad reproduced as one slab of text on the CD cover, as if it wasn’t all dense enough to start with! Weaker Than Me celebrates (or castigates, I ain’t sure?) weediness, a pretty unusual subject in the world of rock’n’roll machismo, doncha know? “Blades of grass will crush him”, indeed!
Sea shanty subjects of love left behind, and trad folk concerns of wrongful conviction and execution (for arson no less!) are two other less obvious focal points for Richard’s wily wordsmithery. There’s even Et Tu Brute which bigs up Caesar’s supposed last words: “While Caesar bled, not yet even dead, they whispered ‘Did you hear what he said?'”
Those are the ones I can get a handle on. There’s almost too much going on in here, but maybe that’s the point? I don’t think there are any songs about cars’n’girls.
The album ends with the frankly epic (and for once that overused word definitely applies) A Sailor And His True Love , a tune that builds on swells of storm-tossed emotional seas. It is fitting then that Richard tells us:
“I wrote this tune the day after Tim Smith died. It’s a kind of elegy to that wonderful talented man.”
In summary, imagine Phil and Roger singing this like half a barbershop quartet:
The Heart Is In The Body is a staggering piece of work, resulting in the discombobulating bamboozlement of our two scribblers. Will it stop the bins being destroyed? Doubtful. Somehow, I think the bins are less safe, and to add to the mayhem we could see traffic cones on every stately statue’s head in That London.
[Richard Larcombe recently spoke with Roger Trenwith about the new album and you can read the full interview HERE.]
TRACK LISTING
01. I Might Not (5:37)
02. She Didn’t Want (5:56)
03. Weaker Than Me (5:06)
04. The Same Without (6:40)
05. Et Tu Brute (4:16)
06. O Alexander (5:37)
07. Did Look A Fool (7:38)
08. A Sailor And His True Love (9:47)
Total Time – 50:37
MUSICIANS
Nicola Baigent – Clarinet, Bass Clarinet, Saxophone, Recorder, Flute
Charlie Cawood – Bass & Double Bass, Handbells, Sitar
Sharron Fortnam – Vocals
Keepsie – Drums, Handbells
Richard Larcombe – Lead Vocal, Guitar, Harmonium, Harp, Tin Whistle, Violin, Cello, Concertina, English Border Bagpipe, Dulcimer
Rhodri Marsden – Piano, Keyboards, Bassoon, Saw, Recorder, Tremelo Guitar, Percussion, Theremin, Vocals
Josh Perl – Keyboards, Vocals
~ With:
Mark Cawthra – Vocals (2, 5 & 6)
Susannah Henry – Vocals (3)
James Larcombe – Hurdy Gurdy (8)
Sarah Nash – Vocals (3 & 7)
ADDITIONAL INFO
Record Label: Independent
Country of Origin: UK
Date of Release: 4th April 2025
