#20 Tapir!: The Pilgrim, Their God and The King Of My Decrepit Mountain

It’s cold, it’s dark
Throw your bones in the ancient water
It’s cold, it’s dark
Throw your bones in the ancient water

The Nether

Top twenty bitches! Ain’t no more fucking around now, we are – as a great poet once said – about to enter pound town, this list about to dick a bitch down. This list’s coochie pink but its bootyhole brown. And we enter the top twenty with another concept album!

As concepts go, it’s definitely more apparent than Dua Saleh’s vague allusions, but a lot less more batshit insane that Lupe Fiasco’s Amy Winehouse fanfic, so I can’t really place it higher than second in the list of 2024’s best concept albums at time of writing. At time of writing because there’s a shitload more of these things to come further down the list. I might seriously be able to do a top ten, and that’s without including borderline examples like ‘Cowboy Carter’ (CONCEPT: Billionaire Celebrity Makes a Quasi-Country Album to Impress People Nobody Else Cares About’), Danny Brown (CONCEPT: ‘Rapper Gets Old’) or Hinds (CONCEPT: ‘WE’RE MOTHERFUCKING HINDS!!!!!’). Moor Mother though? Yeah, might count that if I’m desperate. Break instead of emergency.

And while ‘The Piddler, the Patsy, His Wife and Her Lover’, or whatever it’s called, is absolutely committed to the bit – the band even made polystyrene heads!* – I’m pretty unconvinced as to what the actual worth of the concept is. The Pilgrim sets off on a journey. A ‘Pilgrimage’, if you will, but I doubt The Pilgrim would call it that as it’s a bit too obvious with a name like that. This takes up the entire first act. There are entire songs dedicated to The Pilgrim thinking about whether he’ll go or not. Then I’m pretty sure The Pilgrim kills a sparrow by stepping on it, which is careless. Act 2 is The Pilgrim crossing the sea. The whole act. And let me tell you, it ain’t exactly ‘Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World‘. Then, in the third and final act, The Pilgrim goes up this apparently ‘decrepit’ mountain and meets the aforementioned King, who basically tells The Pilgrim to jack it all in. Then there’s some stuff about iPhones and Hugo Boss. Then that’s the end of it. And, I’ll tell you what, knowing my bloody luck, it was probably all a dream.

(*aaaaaaaaw, Tapir!! Is that head supposed to be that person you made up?? It’s adorable! I’m putting this on the fridge!)

I may be being facetious, but guitarist Tom Rogers-Coltman has said of the album (originally a Beta Bandesque three EPs) that “People connect with folklore and folk music in this age due to some sort of speculative interpretation of the past. It’s almost like nostalgia for something that never existed in the first place. But if you make your own folklore through, say, an album, you can create this alternative nostalgia that everyone relates to in a different way”. Which means, in case you didn’t understand, that the album essentially doesn’t mean anything and the band wanted to make it sound a bit Pilgrim’s Progress, a bit Lord of the Rings, a bit hey-nonny-noo. Which is fine. It at least gives the listener a chance to use that old dictionary when words like ‘eidolon‘. Apparently, a term in ancient Greek literature meaning “a spirit-image of a living or dead person; a shade or phantom look-alike of the human form”. Ha! To think your Dad wanted you to study medicine at university rather than Classical Studies! 899 YouTube subscribers later, and I think someone is owed an apology.

Or, maybe it refers to the head of Underworld General Hospital and the main character of ‘Pleasure Unbound’:

She’s a demon-slayer who hungers for sensual pleasure — but fears it will always be denied her. Until Tayla Mancuso lands in a hospital run by demons in disguise, and the head doctor, Eidolon, makes her body burn with unslakable desire. But to prove her ultimate loyalty to her peers, she must betray the surgeon who saved her life.

I hope it’s the latter, that guy seems like a well written character. Though if it is the latter, you should probably apologise to both of your parents and then never talk to them again in shame.

“OK, so this character you’re writing about, what’s their personality like, what are their values and beliefs that will shape them as a character?

“…

…

…

OK, so they’ve got scales on their throat, yeah?”

And Gymnopédie!! The fuck’s that?? An encyclopedia for the gym?? A paedophile who’s really in shape?? A… a… a…

Fuck… I forgot how incredible that song is.

And that’s always how ‘The Dave Dee, The Dozy, The Beaky and the Mick of My Decrepit Tich’ will always get you. These songs are just undeniably fabulous. The meaning of the record is vague, wispish and a little bit silly, but when combined with such astonishing Sufjan joining Radiohead to play acoustic John Lewis Christmas advert covers of Captain Beefheart songs, you’re happy to be washed away into whatever bullshit the band desire to drag you into. The songs of ‘The Sex, The Drugs and the Rock of My Decrepit Roll’ are weird, they’re off-kilter, they’re extremely odd, they’re heartbreaking, they’re inspirational, and they’re absolutely infectious. An absolutely singular debut record.

They capitalised ‘of’ in the album title though? Naaaaaaaaaaaaah, that’s not right. Gotta draw the line somewhere, bloody hippies.

Metacritic: 72

No fucking way is this album on Metacritic. Lowest score on this list so far, but still.

The Album Title as AI Art

Even AI took a look at this album and thought “That’s some Tolkien ass shit right there”