Track Listing

1. Bath
2. Going Downhill Fast
3. Booklovers
4. Seafood Song
5. Geronimo
6. Don't Look Down
7. When the Lights Go Out All Over Europe
8. Summerhouse
9. Neptunes Daughter
10. Drinking Song
11. Ten Seconds to Midnight
12. Tonight We Fly

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #56146 in Music
• Released on: 1996-02-28
• Number of discs: 1

Customer Reviews

"Do you remember the way it used to be?"
“Concept album” … the phrase is enough to make you shiver and brings to mind self-important, over-blown artists disappearing up their own nether-regions in an epic quest to produce the “ultimate” record.

Fortunately, “Promenade” is a concept album that suffers from none of these things.

Loosely built around a love story that is Enid Blyton in feel, epic in scope and even Greek in its hint of tragedy, it’s as if The Famous Five were let loose in a music school and came up with a haphazard masterpiece.

This is pure joyous pop music, but from a bygone era – this is pop at it’s best, in the sense that “pop” meant before it referred to manufactured pap: short, catchy, tuneful, hummable, glorious songs; songs that you can play to your children or grandparents without shame; songs that stay in your mind and make your life richer by their mere existence.

There’s strings, there’s pianos, there’s arty film quotes; there’s “quintessentially English” phrases (“If it ain't some young Turk in search of a fight”); there’s charmingly inoffensive jingoism (“There'll aaaalllwaaays be an England (oh yes there will)”); there’s yearning for the lost innocence of childhood that feels like a message from a pre-politically correct, paedophile-obsessed era (The Summerhouse - “Daring escapes at midnight / And costume-less babes at dawn. / You were only nine years old / And I was barely ten”); there’s a list of famous authors, a homily to classic Europe cinema (“when those lights go out all over Europe / I forget about old Hollywood / 'Cos Doris Day could never make me cheer up / Quite the way those French girls always could”) and a paean to drinking (“We'll drink beyond the boundaries of sense! / We'll drink 'til we start to see lovely pink elephants”); there’s brains, there’s wit, there’s irony, there’s substance, there’s gentle humour, there’s reflection, there’s charm; it’s by turn flippant, winsome, exuberant and dashing; at times it even feels like we’re in a Jane Austen costume drama (Neptune’s Daughter - “When the last course has been consumed / They withdraw to the drawing room”) but at no point does this jumble feel pretentious, too deliberate or over-hammed.

If only falling in love felt like listening to this winning, wonderful, momentous record. Treasure it and never let it go.

Live for today... starting with this.
This is a day in the life, or a life in a day, of two lovers from the early morning bath to the midnight dream. It is also utterly beautiful.

Hannon is by now into his lyrical stride, whimsical yet unfathomably deep. Rarely do you encounter words so pure and full of meaning, each phrase lovingly crafted to perfection. The cynical (yet brilliant) cad of Casanova has yet to become the main attraction, and only surfaces occasionally to garnish the proceedings with humour and realism.

The music is similarly richly layered, coloured with classical shades, yet accessible. Each track sets the mood to emote the specific scene, with orchestral flurries, atmospheric backing vocals, soft piano interludes and a sound rhythm section.

This isn't just one of the Divine Comedy's greatest recordings, it is one of history's greatest musical moments. The moral of the tale is live today, for there might be no tomorrow; no God, no second chance. Amen to that.

Perpetual sadness
There is something quite grand, about The divine comedy. Wether it is the seemingly infinate array of instruments implemented in the music, Hannon's powerful, yet subtley sweet voice or maybe it's the delicious lyrics. Lyrics with depth, and hidden layers that resonate more with every listen, lyrics that, (to quote Graham Lineham) "...make the English language flip like a clown's dog." All woven into a rich tapestry of epic music. So how can anything so grand, at the same time manage to whisper such sweet songs of sadness? Much like previous album 'Liberation', Hannon portrays a certain sense of cynisism in his lyrics, any yet directly combines this with snatches of dry wit and enlightened humour. Hannon is a master if this forte', all of his albums are monumental masterpieces, so romantic and poetic one must silently curse the music industry for overlooking them.