Customer Reviews

Waking Hours

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

Waking Hours will start for you an obsession with this band. The first run will leave you with pleasant thoughts for some catchy songs you may not have heard before ie. Kiss This Thing Goodbye and Hatful of Rain. The other songs may at first slip by your conscious thoughts but, they will remain, and GROW. The riffs to Kiss This Thing Goodbye will jangle in your head until you HAVE to play it again to find out if it really was as good as your fresh memory seems to think. The plunking piano and killer fun banjo (!) will soon have you wondering why this song isn't played on regular radio, constantly. Then you will listen to Hatful of Rain again and somehow feel the sheer musical joy you get when hearing John Cougar Mellencamp's "Cherry Bomb". Then Opposite View will begin to be noticed for it's lyrical energy perfectly describing the feelings of those warm college nights while When I Want You begins to have you humming "Yes I Will" in your head over and over with more kick each time. Then you will find yourself looking for your accoustic guitar even if you never owned one as you listen to This Side of the Morning yet AGAIN! You will marvel at how cool the lyrics "I wanted to be loved but just got laughed at instead so, if this taxi is for hire, I'll get in the back just to feel the friction of the tarmac and the tires" sounds. Then you will think of the lyric "Whole generations thinking of themselves as infidels and pop stars" and you will have to get out the booklet and read the full lyrics to Stone Cold Sober. And just who is it playing the guitars in that song??? Brooding over how much you can relate to Nothing Ever Happens will get you thinking about who exactly was Jimmy Blue? Then, it happens. You realize that you are hooked. You read the WHOLE lyric book and find yourself thinking it reads like a kind of musical poetry, and you're normally indifferent about contemporary poetry! You will log on for reviews on other Del Amitri albums and wonder if those could be as fun as Waking Hours has grown to be. Then you will realize that Waking Hours has 13 B-sides out there on various singles! Another review will rave about how great Spit In the Rain is and someone will comment on the ecstatic joy of the fans at a live playing of The Return of Maggie Brown. You then find that Amazon still has a best of the Del Amitri B-sides called "Lousy With Love" matched with The Best of Del Amitri - Hatful of Rain available. Oh! Those are the guys who did "Roll to Me" and "Always the Last to Know"!!! The hooks go deeper. Then you are referred to the website http://duk.public.se/del-amitri/ and your eyes bug out of your head at how much Dels material there is out there! Then, a critical stage is reached on the one-way road to Del Amitri Obsession, you log on to EBay, type in "Del Amitri CD single" and find there are 14 hits! Holy cow! A vinyl copy of the single to Move Away Jimmy Blue is going off shortly and you grab it cheap to hear the B-side This Side Of The Morning (live in a car park at 2 a.m). You get it and love it but, can't get over how good Another Letter Home is! Now you find you must have it on CD! Face it, you have now crossed the Rubicon into Del Amitri obsession, AND YOU LOVE IT!!! So, Welcome to Charlie's Bar! We fellow fanatics have been waiting for you with glasses raised! Drink your fill to the gills! There will be no Whiskey Remorse, you have found your way to the happy home of Del Amitri junkies!

I first heard this band listening to a free-form radio show in Philadelphia, and the DJ played the album without interruption. I was floored! The sadness, bittersweet reflections, and eventual recovery (not without cynicism) from an intense breakup have been perfectly captured here, and there are no false notes. Though not a "concept album," Waking Hours nevertheless follows the singer from accepting the relationship is doomed in the first cut ("Kiss This Thing Goodbye"), anger over his loss and the world in general ("Stone Cold Sober" and "You're Gone"), to thoughts of revenge ("When I Want You"), lament ("This Side of the Morning" and "Empty"), to eventual acceptance with a dose of cynicism and 'to hell with you' declarations in "Hatful of Rain." I really rooted for this guy to pull through by the end of the album. The album's last cut, "Nothing Ever Happens" is a scathing indictment of Glasgow life from our love-hardened protagonist. I had the pleasure to see this band live and meet them after the show. I told singer/bassist/band leader Justin Currie that Waking Hours helped me get over a bad relationship. He looked at me with a a small smile and said, "Me too."Waking Hours is simply terrific!

The thing I particularly like about Del Amitri is that they always strive for timelessness. While other groups ride waves and trends and finally get washed up somewhere along the shore, Del Amitri go about their musicial craft with quiet dedication and a confidence born of survival. These songs will never age.

Waking Hours from 1989 is one of their best albums. Already the songwriting is mature, the muscianship accomplished. For those who haven't heard them, they play basic Pop Rock with touches of Blues, Soul, and Country, but they're not just covering the bases. All these influences work to their best, creating the right atmosphere for the burden of each song, helping to change the mood from ironic cheerfulness (Kiss This Thing Goodbye) to sombre nihilism (Empty) back to defiant optimism (Hatful of Rain).

The lyrics are good enough to read on their own. They write songs about relationships failing, love becoming meaningless, and people repeating the same mistakes again, underlying these themes with a kind of cynical idealism that is faithful to experience while at the same time rejecting it in favour of an irrational inner optimism. It is this which sends us out to fight or to love again and again.

Hello, everybody, Dels are probably the most fresh, non-commercial and honest stars in Scotland, but they belong to the whole world. I'm from Ukraine, and after being living in UK, I felt in love with their misuc,- that's besides everything else in England. Each line is genious, each song has content, every word is suffered. What I like more about them- they ignore MTV and all popsy commercial events-awards- they play music for the people. Dels- thanx a lot for your music. Good-bye, everybody, all the best Yura

I bought this originally because of the song "Kiss This Thing Goodbye" (I loved the banjo added, the happy-go-lucky melody proves sarcasm against a dying relationship). But I enjoyed a lot of the other tracks like the sardonically melancholly "This Side of the Moment", the disgruntled "Opposite View", the down-in-the-dumps "You're Gone", the desperate "Stone Cold Sober", the kiss-off "Hatful of Rain", the sarcastic advice-giving "Move Away Jimmy Blue", the bittersweet "When I Want You", and the painfully introspective "Nothing Ever Happens". "Empty" is probably the most biting song on here. A reviewer had said this album spoke to them in the midst of broken relationships (and supposedly these songs written by Justin Currie after a share of his own broken relationships). It spoke to me, too. However, I can't listen too much anymore, since I'm currently in a happy relationship (but it still brings back memories which I can now laugh about!)

Simply stated: This is a great album. From start to finish, no weak songs, lots of thoughtful lyrics about pain and hearbreak (not to mention drinking), and so toe-tappers to boot. A shift in sound from their anglo-sounding (and they are Scottish, afterall) self-titled debut, this is the beginning of a slew of terrific acoustic-based pop albums (pop in the good sense; like the Beatles but not anything in today's top 10). Buy it, listen to it, and you will be up all night too. Waking Hours indeed.

I first bought Waking Hours after hearing the song Kiss this Thing Goodbye. I was in a classic rock phase. I thought the song sounded a little like Creedence. However, when I heard the album I saw it was much more. Each song tells a story. And each song is special. The vocals, the music, the lyrics just make this album unforgettable. Stone Cold Sober, This Side of the Morning, Nothing Ever Happens....you just dont get better than that. But, the best song in my opinion is Hatful of Rain. Its like my anthem. Anyone who thinks Del Amitri is just Roll to Me needs to hear this album. A Classic.

A friend in collage introduced this CD to me during my freshmen year.Kiss This Thing Goodbye was being played on our local collage radio station. But that would be the weakest track of the album. The rest is neo-folk & rock brought together to make a pop sound that was truly original. Lead singer Justin Currie's voice sounds so american that you would never guess he was from Uddington,Glasgow. It is a shame that none of their other future albums could match this awesome CD. Buy it with no regrets!!!

Justin Currie's song writing really shines on this album. After a lack-luster major label debut, "Waking Hours" is a pop-bomb. While this album is certainly Scot-pop-rock at its best, it is much deeper than that. Maybe it's something in the description of a hometown that's dying from the inside out, or of a relationship that's rotting like a tomato left to long on the vine, but Justin Currie's lyrics cut right to the bone.

"I wanted to be loved but just got laughed at instead/So if this Taxi's for hire/I'll get in the back/just to feel the friction of the tarmac and the tires"

When a songwriter can peel a page out of you mental diary and put it to music so eloquently, even thought it can be tragically depressing, how can you not love it.

While this album definately has a late-80's feel, musically and lyrically, it shines

Waking Hours is one of the few treasures that I can still pull out and surprise pop afficianados. They broke into the airwaves with "Last to Know" and people looked forward rather than to the past; where their best work lay. If you want to hear an amazing EP that is impossible to find, but well worth the search, sniff out "Spit in The Rain." Until then, Waking Hours is the best place to start and finish.