The Earlies’ These Were The Earlies reviewed: magical, premature eulogy turns 21

The soil was practically falling over their heads

As album titles go, These Were The Earlies was hardly one to inspire confidence; it was as if this Anglo-American collective were over before they’d begun. Indeed, with their debut’s songs selected from several years’ worth of limited, little-heard singles, the soil was practically falling over their heads.

So who were The Earlies? The answer explains their predicament. They spanned two continents, with Christian Madden and Giles Hatton in Manchester, and John-Mark Lapham travelling between there and Texas, where Brandon Carr also lived. More confusingly, they’d double, even triple, their live lineup, yet Lapham rarely joined them onstage. Not that the Brits had met Carr during recordings: he’d only contributed vocals after encountering his compatriot in an American record store. In terms of headcount, then, not to mention backstory, many in the music business would call them ‘unwieldy’.

A comforting hand on the shoulder

Still, perhaps this looseness powered their cosmic frontier-crossing. Certainly, Mercury Rev and The Flaming Lips reverberated in “25 Easy Pieces”’ starry-eyed naivety, “Dead Birds”’ orchestral fireworks and “Slow Man’s Dream”’s ghostly, bucolic drift. That’s not to mention the kosmische “Bring It Back Again”’s psychedelia and the generally baroque “Wayward Song”’s otherworldly crescendo.

Nonetheless, These Were… was more intimate than Deserter’s Songs or The Soft Bulletin, less a handbook to awe, more a comforting hand on the shoulder. Bookended by mysterious petitions for “Mother Mary” to “take me home” – also repeated amid the hypnotic “Morning Wonder”’s looped patterns, twanged riffs and anarchic synths – it thrived best in the unpredictable, singular detail of its more confidential moments.

This bewildering, poignant record

The other world with which The Earlies were most concerned appeared to be the afterlife. On the initially fragile “One Of Us Is Dead”, Carr, like a shy Wayne Coyne, declared “Maybe I’m the one who’s already gone cold” before crossing over, swathed in dreamy brass. “Dead Birds”, too, begged “bring love to this cold, cold heart” before revealing the glowing, ornately arranged warmth of reconciliation. “The Devil’s Country”’s druggy chanting and kung-fu free jazz were more immediately dramatic, but other qualities set The Earlies apart: “Wayward Song”’s wheezing organ and braided woodwind, “Slow Man’s Dream”’s trebly drones and dew-dropped flutes, ‘Lows”’ compassionate, Air-like nostalgia.

Best was “Song For #3”, a breathtaking lullaby as touching as “Hushabye Mountain”, with Carr asking plaintively, “How long will we sing this song?” The truth was, never long enough – just one EP has emerged since their second album, 2007’s The Enemy Chorus. Two decades on, though, there’s plenty of joy to be had in reliving this bewildering, poignant record, and its bold, unconventional songwriting, now proved to be way ahead of its time.