‘As The Crow Flows’ was an oddly folksy proposition, filled with all manner of violins, harmoniums and guest musicians, often intimating at greatness, but marred by too many overstuffed ideas from too many hands at the wheel. What should have been a quietly stated departure from fashion and expression of depth, was lost in detours and distractions, which though absorbing, was an arduous experience for any listener. It was also upset by the fact that it was a contradiction in terms: Seafood were ostensibly an American influenced leftfield guitar band, and here they were doing something demonstrably English; rural even. In place of the Idlewild, Pavement or Weezer toolkit they’d used the first time around came a crochet box of sewing patterns and cross-stitches.
‘Paper Crown King’, by contrast, couldn’t be any clearer an indication of a renewed assault on our eardrums. Mixed by one-time producer, Eli Janney, a pretty yet thunderous wall of guitars and terse rhythms provide tracks like ‘I Will Talk’ and ‘Between The Noize Pt 2’, ‘Last Outpost’ and ‘Little Pieces’ with the same kind of clarity and impact that defined great guitar albums like ‘The Bends’ and ‘Absolution’. Not that it’s proggy at all, in fact, references might better off be saved for Radio Free Europe era REM and bands like Midnight Oil, such is the muscular manner in which rolls, but it’s a more pointed proposition, certainly. And whilst it’s the glorious burst of euphoria and abandon thrown up by the truly magical single ‘Signal Sparks’ that is likely to please the listener most, it’s the quiet pulse of tracks like ‘Awkward Ghost’ and ‘How You Gonna Live Without Me’ that make it the haunting, lyrical woozefest it really is beneath the noise and the iron lung. Let’s be honest, this is really the album we wanted the last time.