The Smoky God by Neil Campbell
Buy or listen on Bandcamp
Album review by Tommy Calderbank
Quick quiz: who was it said ‘writing about music is like dancing about architecture’…? (Zappa? Elvis Costello? No, Martin Mull, apparently). Anyway, if that’s the case, then it’s time to dance once again about the Sonic Cathedral that is the mighty Neil Campbell. His new album The Smoky God is breathtaking in all the ways, up to the very highest standards that this humble maestro has previously set himself (see Nerve reviews passim).
Creativity is an amazing thing. Sometimes it takes time to distill the essence of inspiration, to blow on that spark to create fire. As it was with Canti and Marty’s album ‘Romeo 660’ (reviewed recently HERE), 10 years in the making, so it is with The Smoky God. Most of the music here originated at the end of Neil’s work with Joey Zeb, Andy Maslivec and Marty Snape in the band Bulbs in 2013. Further development of the work here continued over the years, gestating and growing until we have ourselves, right here, a bouncing baby God, everyone. Pass ‘round the cosmic cigars!
The book upon which the album is based ‘The Smoky God, or a Voyage Journey to the Inner Earth’, written by Willis George Emerson and published in 1908, is a story presented as a true account describing the adventures of Olaf Jansen, a Norwegian sailor, who sailed with his father through an entrance to the Earth’s interior at the North Pole. In the story, for two years Jansen and his father lived with the inhabitants of an underground network of colonies who, Emerson writes, were 12 feet tall and whose world was lit by a ‘smoky’ central sun – The Smoky God. When our protagonist returns to the surface world, nobody believes his fanciful tale and he’s institutionalised in an asylum for many years. Only on his deathbed is his personal testimony transcribed by Emerson in the book.
The album cover (by Colin Maddocks and designed by Dusty) offers us a portal into and from this fantastical world. The inner photo by Adrian Wharton is a classic black and white image of Neil in his pure flow, emerging from the darkness, eyes closed, head back to receive and channel his own frequencies and wavelengths.
No man is an island, however, and he’s joined on Smoky God duties by some exceptional musical talents. Full roster goes like this:
Neil Campbell (classical and acoustic guitars, bass, additional keyboards, electronics, programming and more)
Marty Snape (electronics and pre-production)
Victor Nordberg (drums)
Roger Gardiner (additional bass)
Matthew Philips (Cello, Strings)
Stephen Cole (electronics on track 6)
Jon Lawton (electronics and electronic percussion programming)
First interesting thing to note is that the whole album clocks in at just 30 minutes, so there’s a refreshing brevity about it, without leaving the listener feeling short-changed. More artists should take note – get to the point, and let’s all crack on with our lives, shall we? There’s a lot of art to experience in this world and not much time to enjoy it. So there’s not a moment wasted in this incredible sonic journey. All killer, no filler, as they say. Opening track Setting Sail establishes a gorgeous vibe and mood from the start, resplendent in those bubbling electronics and intricate, atomic melodies we love so much from this Quantum Guitarist. And yes, very much put me in mind of Bulbs. and that’s a glorious thing; in part, this album can be seen as a maybeglimpse into ‘what Bulbs did next’ (listening again to their classic album ‘On’, incidentally, is a reminder of just how brilliant they were, and helps to see connections with this particular piece). Then Franz Josef Land lands, breathless, driving, demanding you keep up. Point and counterpoint, melodies and harmonics jostle for your attention, before it goes down a gear, to give your mind a breather. Then back to the insistence, building and building until it’s resolution in Fresh Water Streams. Now THIS one goes for the dance jugular, maintaining the tension with a tense morse-code style melody line, buoyed along by driving, skittering, frenzied beats and looping keys. A sense of ADVENTURE permeates, as each track melds into the next. Themes bubble up in the streams, rising and falling in simple complexity.
The Opening is where it starts to get really widescreen. Indiana Jones and The Smoky God. Reprising the opening theme helps cohere the piece. This is very much a whole concept affair, no random tracks pulled together, here. Skittering drums are ace. Victor really outdoes himself on this track.
Anthem of the Giants is a portentous, moody interlude, really atmospheric, background whisperings of uncertain provenance. Unsettling. Delicate piano, deep chords, ritualistic chanting all lead us to the title track…
The Smoky God is very reminiscent of a previous band of Neil’s, the sublime After The Flood. The very spirit of Spring is in this track. The full realisation of Olaf Jansen’s journeyings in the Underworld. It’s majestic, it truly is. The guitar SOARS, the prog time signature keeping you slightly off balance but always on course. Unfolding its melodic potential, merging the instruments so harmoniously, gives this track a magical quality. By the time it reaches the handclaps, around the 5 minute mark, the appropriate emotional response, dear reader, in case you were wondering, is JOY!
As the next track ‘Returning’ unfolded on first hearing, the thought occurred to me: what IS it, exactly, this undeniable quality that Neil’s work has? This ability to move the emotional sea beneath the fractured ice of our outer shells? Listening to this, I felt transported, elevated, deeply emotional throughout. Definitely to be listened to in a oner.
The album’s journey ends with ‘Recollection’, which repeats the central motifs but in a nicely stripped manner, before going into the BIG ending; soaring electric guitars, riff-laden, that could easily fill any stadium you care to name me, before settling its final account in a most delicate manner. It takes real effort to appear this effortless, to tie this whole beautiful sonic Universe together.
Listening to The Smoky God is like playing a Choose Your Adventure story. This is music from the very realm it describes. Fabulous in the OLD sense, insistent, demanding to be heard, taking us deeper and deeper into its narrative, musical web. This is EPIC stuff. This is Dune on Bentley Road! The soundtrack to a Studio Ghibli film yet to be shot, projected in an unbuilt cinema to an audience not yet born. This is the stuff of which dreams are made. Listening to Neil cracks open your heart and does all that alchemical stuff that music is capable of.
He turns your mettle into gold, basically.
Come then, gentle listener! Why tarry? Come heed the wonder of The Smoky God…