Music > Album Reviews

The Divine Comedy - Foreverland

23/09/16

Neil Hannon's lush orchestral pop creations have now been a part of our lustrous musical landscape for over twenty five years – compositions that still leave us wondering exactly what was in that woodshed, and continue to have us humming along to National Express, even when we are on a Megabus.

Latest album Foreverland  is the musical antidote to Banksy's Dismaland, and delivers twelve exquisite slices of Divine Comedy served up under a patchwork of guises to tickle and amuse in the grand tradition of not only Noel Coward, but also of the late musical geniuses Kirsty MacColl and Victoria Wood. Only Hannon can reduce the life of Catherine The Great to empirical whimsy - “She had wonderful hair, and a powerful gait”. Only in a Divine Comedy album can a self-deluding homage to the vertically challenged (Napoleon Complex) nestle next to a swashbuckling voyage in search of utopia (the titular Foreverland) before delivering a gorgeously quirky love duet featuring his partner Cathy Davey (Funny Peculiar). Neil Hannon must be close to being declared a national treasure. In uncertain times, and with little to laugh about, Hannon allows us an indulgent sideways, backwards and upside-down chuckle, and for that we love him.

Long live The Divine Comedy.

8/10