Tales from Turnpike House [Deluxe Edition] [2 CD] in Bloomington, MN

No matter the associates or variables involved, a
Saint Etienne
album is always going to end up sounding just like a
album, even if it's a little different from what came before it. On
Tales from Turnpike House
, the group gets two productions from
Xenomania
(
Girls Aloud
,
Sugababes
), several vocal arrangements from
Tony Rivers
the Castaways
Harmony Grass
) and son, some songwriting and vocal contributions from the misunderstood
David Essex
("Rock On," "Stardust"), and assorted things from faces old and new. The album comes out as their most organic since 1998's
Good Humor
; even the tracks driven by programming are warm in comparison to vast chunks of both
Sound of Water
and
Finisterre
. The concept -- a day in the life of fictional characters who live in a house that does indeed exist -- allows for a range of material that's as broad as what can be heard on any other
album. The glitzy dance-pop of "Stars Above Us" ("Stars above us, cars below us/Nothing can touch us, baby"), for example, precedes the ruminative "Teenage Winter," containing an all-too-sharp expression of the resisted shift away from adolescent fanaticism ("And in the charity shop...not much left on the doorstep recently/Something to do with eBay, Johnny reckons/He's bidding on it now, for a Subbuteo catalog '81-'82/He'll win it, put it in a drawer and forget he ever bought it"). Though the other dancefloor-ready songs -- the sleek, silken "A Good Thing" and the sweetly lacerating "Lightning Strikes Twice" -- have major presence, the gentler moments, thriving on easy-to-miss intricacies and enlivening vocal arrangements (the
Rivers
men are astute
Beach Boys
disciples), are especially generous with their charms. [A two-CD digitally remastered Deluxe Edition of
was released in 2017, featuring 16 bonus tracks on the second disc.] ~ Andy Kellman