This Van Occupanther doesn't need taming, but a bit of resequencing would help...

I came to this, Midlake's second album and breakthrough, without much knowledge on band or album. It's likely that I had read a short write up in Rolling Stone on them, and I might've heard one song on a CD sampler that were popular with music magazines at the time. But other than that, pretty much a blank slate. I just felt like buying a CD on my way back from work, even in this big box type electronics store someone had put Midlake up in a 'recommended albums' spot and the album was at mid-price, so who was I to refuse a date with Van Occupanther? Upon listening to it, I was blown away by the album, especially since I basicallly had no expectations. But from the moment the first notes of "Roscoe" started, this album had me. Then, "Bandits", great. And so on and so forth. 

Midlake's rather idiosyncratic take on folk on The Trials Of Van Occupanther was a true breath of fresh air, especially since at the time one of the hypes was so-called Freak Folk, with more emphasis on acoustic guitars, whereas Midlake combined some unique, sometimes rather impenetrable lyrics (seriously, even with the lyrics sheet, sometimes you're not sure exactly what Tim Smith is on about...) with a rather interesting mix of acoustic folk and accompanying beautiful harmonies, mixed with some surprisingly crunchy, fuzzy guitar outbursts and, even more uniquely, some really chunky keyboard sounds that seem to have escaped straight from the 80s. Some critics called it close to the Laurel Canyon sound, though I'm not sure I entirely agree with that. This isn't Beachwood Sparks, even though they share their penchant for psychedelia. 

This rather unique mix made it such a disappointed that for the highy awaited follow-up The Courage Of Others Smith led the band toward straditional British folk, with little traces of what made the band unique. This also led to one of the most boring concerts I've ever attended, but that's another story. Then Smith left the band, with guitar/keyboard player (and backing vocalist) Eric Pulido now elevated to lead vocal duties. Which, on Antiphon, actually worked great. But still, the best album of Midlake remains for my money The Trials Of Van Occupanther. But what I realized during one of my many relistens is that while the album is great, and there is a the sum is greater than its parts element to it, there was one issue with it: a sequencing that didn't work as well as it should. 

There were two related, interconnected problems: Starting with "Young Bride" right after "Van Occupanther", we get a trio of slower songs (some, admittedly, with uptempo intervals) and they are all long songs, each clocking in at over five minutes. The album had nicely picked up steam, only to then completely lose that momentum on this triptych in the middle. And when you then skip to "We Gathered in Spring", there's the thick 80s-style keyboard sound that shows up here and in the next song, "It Covers The Hillsides". At the time, it was a shock to hear these keyboard swathes coming seemingly out of nowhere,. But there was another issue: Having these shorter, synth-adorned songs clustered at the end, after a cluster of slower, longer songs, inadvertently made them come off as trifles.   

Yes, song for song, pound for pound, The Trials Of Van Occupanther, is a great album, but it's a great album with a less than ideal sequencing. So, the mission was clear: uncluster the middle, introduce that keyboard sound that set Midlake apart from other neo-folk outfits earlier in the album, and balance the shorter and longer, slower numbers better. Which is what I did. 

It's almost shameful to tag this as an alternate album, as I didn't add or delete anything, just shuffled these numbers around. But maybe, hopefully, that's all it takes. Either way, if you know this album, give it a spin to see whether it does run better for you as well. And if you don't know it, well, then you need to get The Resequenced Trials Of Van Occupanther asap, as it's easily one of the (semi-) hidden treasures of the 2000s.