 Whilst the Beatnik Filmstars and The Blue Aeroplanes may never have set the world afire, they were both mainstays of the UK indie scene in the early '90s. After a few years adrift, former Filmstar Tim Rippington and former Aeroplane Ruth Cochran have finally washed up on the shores of the land of the Forest Giants, and put out a CD whose retro mannerisms hark back to the era of their former bands.
In Sequence is small-scale in execution, vision and length. While there's nothing inherently wrong with this approach, it does see Forest Giants safely hugging the middle ground, and bar a few excursions into Fall territory - particularly the slurred spoken intro to Route A115- it is immensely predictable.
It doesn't help that many of the tracks here are little more than vaguely interesting ideas rather than fully-fledged songs. For example, Do You Know What I've Been Through? is built entirely on a single lazy riff and a handful of words. It's mildly engaging, but that's as far as it goes.
If Forest Giants come even remotely close to matching the prolific outputs of their former bands then there's still a chance that something truly memorable might come from this pairing, but so far the signs aren't good. :: Rowan Shaeffer |
