Mick Flannery has always been some man for a concept album.<\/p>\n
His debut record Evening Train<\/em><\/a> (2007) \u2013 which told the story of two brothers, a dead-end rural town full of hopeless characters, and a doomed love triangle \u2013 was adapted into a stage musical at Cork\u2019s Everyman Theatre in June 2019.<\/p>\n Still, even for Flannery, this latest release<\/a> feels as if he\u2019s gone full method.<\/p>\n The 12-track album tells the story of some of history\u2019s greatest chess games, and the colourful characters that played them, through a series of short vignettes and imagined conversations put to music.<\/p>\n If that wasn\u2019t alienating enough for some listeners \u2013 even the most diehard Mick fans \u2013 Flannery has added another even more ambitious wrinkle to the fold.<\/p>\n The arrangement of these 12 songs is dictated by the games they\u2019re based on. This is novel at worst and inspired at best. But how does it work exactly?<\/p>\n In constructing the music for A Night At The Opera<\/em>, Flannery assigned a chord to each piece on the chessboard. There are six kinds of chess piece (pawn, knight, rook, bishop, queen, king) and seven chords in a key, so mathematically it works out pretty well.<\/p>\n Head hurting? It gets more complicated.<\/p>\n Having established his chord-to-piece framework, Flannery allowed each song\u2019s chord progression to be dictated by the sequence in which each piece was played.<\/p>\n If the opening piece (a pawn let\u2019s say) is equal to a C chord, for example, then the song starts on C. Maybe the queen, a G chord, moves next. So the opening chords are C and G, and so on and so on.<\/p>\n This makes for pretty interesting, and sometimes challenging, listening. Though it ultimately works, the constrictive framework Flannery established for himself sometimes produces some slightly dodgy chord changes.<\/p>\n At its highest peaks, you can feel the tension as grandmasters battle it out on the board, repeating chords representing crucial knights and queens going to war and creating a sombre, marching syncopation that drives the story forward.<\/p>\n This meticulous framework culminates in sparse, stripped down songs (very often just vocals with piano accompaniment) that are a return to Flannery\u2019s early work.<\/p>\n Any of these 12 tracks would fit in comfortably on Evening Train<\/em> or 2008\u2019s White Lies<\/em><\/a>. And that\u2019s not a slight. If anything, it\u2019s proof of how powerful Flannery\u2019s first two records were.<\/p>\n A Night At The Opera<\/em> isn\u2019t the shrieking guitar build up at the end of the title track on 2016\u2019s I Own You<\/em><\/a>, it\u2019s a whispered secret after a long conversation that has you hanging on every word.<\/p>\n The album\u2019s opening track, \u2018A Night At The Opera\u2019<\/em><\/a> (inspired by the story of US grandmaster Paul Morphy\u2019s invitation to attend a performance of Bellini\u2019s Norma<\/em> in 1858 in Paris, only to find a chessboard set up and waiting for him in the box \u2013 story goes, he played the entire match with his back to the board, focused on the stage) is a testament to how comfortable Flannery has become in his own talents.<\/p>\n The soaring falsetto melodies at the end of the track provide a massive counterpoint to the rasping Tom Waits impressions Flannery chided himself for slipping into in his early career.<\/p>\n Is the album a little inaccessible? Sometimes. The piece-to-chord framework, and Flannery\u2019s doggedness in sticking to concept, doesn\u2019t make for many catchy hooks or choruses.<\/p>\n Still, A Night At The Opera<\/em> isn\u2019t without its relevance.<\/p>\n \u2018<\/em>I Do Not Run<\/em><\/a>\u2019, based on legendary grandmaster Garry Kasparov\u2019s historical run-ins with Vladimir Putin, feels anthemic in the context of recent events in Eastern Europe.<\/p>\n It\u2019s hard not to picture Ukrainian soldiers, and those banding in to help them, in the lines:\u00a0 \u201cYou are not a king; \/ you that hides behind, \/ you that clings to power \/ with ever-bloodied hand. \/ My name is not my name. \/ My home is not my home. \/ Yet I stand where I stand. \/ I do not run.\u201d<\/p>\n A Night At The Opera<\/em> won\u2019t get the airtime it deserves. Listening to it from start to finish, this feels like a near certainty. Though I\u2019m not sure Flannery cares too much about that fact.<\/p>\n This is an album to be experienced alone. Take it as it is, in a dimly lit bar or on a walk on a cold day and let it flow over you. Appreciate the fact that it isn\u2019t made to please you. It wants you to appreciate it as you would a game of chess \u2013 as something mechanical and beautiful and obscure simultaneously.<\/p>\n Despite its unabashed stance in the face of what fans were perhaps expecting from Flannery\u2019s follow-up to 2021\u2019s In The Game<\/em><\/a> (his duet album with Susan O\u2019Neill) and 2019\u2019s Mick Flannery<\/em><\/a> (arguably his \u2018poppiest\u2019 release to date), A Night At The Opera<\/em> still has all the hallmarks of a Mick Flannery record.<\/p>\n It\u2019s filled to bursting with the sardonic, questioning outlook on life that Flannery injects into all his work.<\/p>\n Some lines spread his trademark gallows humour across you like a familiar, comforting blanket:<\/p>\n \u201cDreams are funny things. \/ You are on a rock \/ hurtling through an unseen space \/ at 67,000mph. \/ And you understand these words I say \/ and yet you lay your head \/ down each day. \/ And you fall asleep and dream. \/ You funny thing.\u201d<\/p>\nClever Construction<\/h3>\n
A Whispered Secret<\/h3>\n
Mechanical and Beautiful<\/h3>\n
King of Hate<\/h3>\n