The Black Watch
For All the World
ATOM Records
Heaven awaits John Andrew Fredrick, who gets his angel wings on For All the World. Outfitted with a feathery set for promotional photos accompanying the transcendent, yet approachable, new double album from his enraptured dream-pop vessel The Black Watch, now on its 25th voyage of record, Fredrick appears to be taken with the irony of it all, the imagery casting him as an earthbound, guitar-wielding everyman — wearing a hoodie, of course — with seraphic aspirations of flight. Maybe operating a drone is more his speed.
Diverging interests in mortality and faith, pipe dreams and lost love, as well as desire and the fickle recall of the human mind, are lifted from elegiac lyrics — Fredrick being a novelist and English professor, too — that probe and ponder, as The Black Watch eschews the ethereal for a less complicated, more direct tack. That was an avenue they explored on 2004’s Weird Rooms, and the directional shift continues with For All the World, where the etchings are sharper than usual and straightaway propulsion often wins the day.
While the summery, samba-like sway and light acoustic plucking of an undulating “There’s a Place” and the misty English folk mystique of “The Hook Stuck” seem beautifully orphaned, stronger personalities sally forth confidently on For All the World. It must be the pleasing melodies and brisk tempos of a crisply distorted and playful “Surely You Rally” — howling in the distance — and a sublime and ridiculous dandy “Lord Marchpane,” as well as the cascading, sparkly “Fainting,” that catch the ear and keep hold with such an assured ease.
Then again, there are prettier and fuller realizations of The Black Watch aesthetic, such as the auroral psychedelic blowout “Madcap Girl” — its headful of blurred, disembodied mumble untroubled by faraway, streaming artillery softly bombing away in Floydian wonder — and a bittersweet “Not for Us,” its heart never healing quite right despite its lovely swells. With its big strumming and occasional triggers of jagged riffing, its textural variety and zooming chem trails, and how it gracefully traverses endlessly rolling topography, not to mention the sense of it folding in upon itself, “Maybe Tomorrow Then” is a headphone tour de force, like “Achilles Past.” In the latter, guitars weave in and out of traffic, percussive swathes of orchestral sounds overwhelm, and everything swirls, dives, and soars in epic fashion. The mellotron must be exhausted after such a workout.
On the other hand, the simple, jangly twirl and flute-like whisper of “The Knife Cliché” yield more affecting drama, while the glassy, gaseous, string-laden “Much More” scratches that shoegazer itch. The heady rush of “Listen You Wait” is powerful, just as “Effective Forthwith” revisits The Psychedelic Furs’ moody, New Wave darkness, with synth flyovers and strange melodic whorls. As grand as the title to For All the World is, it’s the ambition — enhanced by the creativity of Andy Creighton and Misha Bullock, in particular — and detailed songcraft at work here that are to be marveled at, along with multitudes of well-articulated guitar forays and flourishes. The Black Watch is back on duty.
