Aug, 2016
4 Star Review
The Divine Comedy - Foreverland ****
Orchestral pop maverick tries Becoming More Like AJP Taylor.
Neil Hannon has always been known for his historical leanings, and The Divine Comedy's interbellum influences - Coward (Noël) and Cole (Porter) - have seldom been far from the surface.
But this time, Hannon, who has confessed to "watching too much BBC4", ventures further back, to Napoleon, Catherine The Great and the French Foreign Legion.
The sound is classic Hannon (snowy string flurries, baroque harpsichords, the odd Russian choir), but when he departs from the template - on the Gainsbourg-inspired To The Rescue, the spy movie drama of A Desperate Man, and the Broadway duet Funny Peculiar, featuring Hannon's other half Cathy Davey - Foreverland truly excels.
Listen To: To The Rescue | Catherine The Great
Simon Price
Q Magazine, October 2016
