Nigel Of Bermondsey - This Is How It Feels
Mention the name ‘Inspiral Carpets’ to the majority of Britain’s population and they will either tell you that it is a household furnishings business that has recently gone into administration or mumble something about, “the band that Noel Gallagher was a roadie for before he became Oasis…?” The latter would be correct, as Inspiral Carpets were indeed the pre-Britpop indie band that offered the elder Gallagher a taste of the rock and roll lifestyle that he would later gorge upon by allowing him to set up their equipment before gigs.
In addition to having one of the most famous British singer-songwriters of the last two decades as a dogsbody, they also managed to write a few songs that have stood the test of time, including ‘This Is How It Feels’. A synth-drenched melancholic tale of the kitchen sink variety, the song’s morbid refrain of, “Husband don’t know what he’s done, kids don’t know what’s wrong with mum” encapsulated the mood of Thatcher’s council estate Britain.
Seeing as the political state of the country seems to have come full circle since the band’s 1990 heyday, with a visionary Prime Minister leaving their successor to pick up the pieces of their shattered economy, it only seems fitting for London based singer-songwriter Nigel Hoyle to cover Inspiral Carpets’s torch song. The indie-pop song is given an acoustic makeover, with some sampled harmonies thrown in to the chorus and a genuinely innovative guitar solo inserted into the middle-eight. More of a memory-jogger than an actual ‘make the song your own’ cover, NOB’s (unfortunate initials) version of ‘This Is How It Feels’ does the song justice and will easily fit into anyone’s ‘gentle acoustic 90′s revivalist pop’ playlist.
On the song’s B-side ‘Something’s On Fire’, Nigel drops the mockney or (mock-mondsey?!) accent to chant melodically over the gentle stabs of synthesiser and strummed acoustic guitar, in an innocuous paean to passed love. The lyrics see a ‘burning’ analogy for love become slightly overdone, (ouch!) but a gentle production value allows the words to simply sail around the mix, becoming yet another pleasant sound in the calm maelstrom of music.
As anyone who has studied GCSE History will know that, ‘those who cannot learn from history are condemned to repeat it’; maybe after Brown does his ‘Major’ slot, the country will see a new upstart from the Labour party promise to make Britain cool again; doubtless NOB will be commissioned to render a piano version of ‘Cigarettes and Alcohol’, yet the real clincher will be whether Inspiral Carpets’ old roadie turns up to the opening party?
David Harfield
(http://www.roomthirteen.com/cgi-bin/cd_view.cgi?CDID=10156)
