Classic album: The Polyphonic Spree - Together We're Heavy

I don’t doubt that many had reservations when, in 2000, Tim Delaughter set about establishing his long held dream of a choral-symphonic rock band. Indeed, the public reaction to the inconceivably epic project (it currently comprises 23 members, to be precise) known as The Polyphonic Spree has always been mixed to say the least, and the group is hardly the house-hold name its creator hoped it would become. But then beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and when I walked into a record shop in Liverpool four years ago and picked up The Spree’s 2004 album Together We're Heavy based on a friend’s recommendation, I had no idea just how beautiful and eye-opening my subsequent audio-experience would be.

The album opens as if on the brink of creation, mysterious and exotic, a captivating blend of distant voices and instruments; I found myself turning the volume up, straining to hear it all. Moments later I was scrambling to do the opposite, a nuclear blast of sound assaulting my eardrums, glittering guitars rocketing through the full-to-bursting texture. The tidal waves gradually subside, giving way to a wistful piano-line, cushioned by strings, through which Tim Delaughter’s endlessly yearning vocals emerge. Here he presents himself as a man with a vision and a need to connect: “I want to be more than yesterday and somehow find a way to your new religion”. The track slow-burns into an anthem, a long-awaited release of pent-up frustration and it had me hooked. Still does.

From here on, tracks merge seamlessly together, the travelling vigour of ‘Hold Me Now’ cooling wonderfully into the slowly unfurling beauty of ‘Mild Devotion to Majesty’. A brass and piano led opening reminiscent of Sgt. Pepper takes us into lead-single ‘Two Thousand Places’, a lesson in the power of simplicity; Delaughter’s heart-felt encouragement is repeated over and over, gradually joined by his colleagues, growing in gravitas and extravagance.

Just as the epic-proportions of the music-making are becoming too overwhelming, The Polyphonic Spree prove that despite their size, they can still do intimate, a flowing interlude waltzing into the harp-encrusted melancholy of ‘One Man Show’. And then we arrive at the album’s centre-piece, two multi-movement tracks, together lasting just shy of twenty minutes; ‘Suitcase Calling’, a tranquil reflection on the future that transforms into a joyous, ELO-inspired emotional outpouring, and ‘When the Fool Becomes a King’, a soundtrack to the most blissful revolution you could imagine.

Of course, The Polyphonic Spree is never going to be to everyone’s taste. Many have accused them of being “artificially happy”, a twenty-first-century criticism if ever I’ve heard one. I somehow feel that if they gave this album a chance, they would revise their opinion; there is some very real darkness on this record, which ultimately serves to make the group’s trademark joy all the more potent when it does arrive.

While, as it’s only five years old, it may not fit everyone’s definition of ‘classic’, Together We’re Heavy was one of the first albums I ever bought, and it just happens that, in my eyes, it has come to represent everything an album could and should be. If it’s chart-busters and radio-friendly tunes you’re looking for, you won’t find them here; even the singles that were released from the album had to be dramatically cut down in length. This is far more than a collection of songs; this album is an emotional journey, an entirety, a whole. By the time the postlude is fading into the distance, you really do feel like your soul has been on an expedition as vast as Tim Delaughter’s heart, and you still want more. As Delaughter sings in ‘Suitcase Calling’, “The places you take me / it seems like it’s always better / until my heart starts to show”.

The Polyphonic Spree: official website | MySpace

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