After his multi-coloured ‘Manchester’ album trilogy – full of mishaps, misturns and superbly skewed songwriting – came BC Camplight’s break-up record, 2023’s The Last Rotation of Earth.
The title and black-and-white photographic cover of its follow-up suggests seriousness, Brian Christinzio staring at his hand, silhouetted like a claw in the background.
That’s a wonderful summary of the far-from-monochrome seventh BC Camplight LP: Christinzio engaging himself in solemn self-examination while personal demons hover and flex. The shadows on A Sober Conversation emanate from the spotlight shone on childhood abuse suffered by the American, at the hands of a camp counsellor. Maybe Christinzio’s stage name finally makes sense in this dark context.
The spectre of such harm swirls over the whole album as Christinzio catalogues escape mechanisms (‘When I Make My First Million’) and rocky yet resolute efforts to face in-recovery reality. The overall trajectory is chaotic, tragi-comedic (a cocktail of “cocaine and Weetabix” on ‘Rock Gently In Disorder’) yet tentatively hopeful – “I get to the morning and I pull through” he explains on ‘Bubbles In The Gasoline’.
Of course, what sets this rueful ruminating apart is BC Camplight’s relentless creativity, carefully layered (mostly by Christinzio himself) instrumentation and witty stylistic asides. A Sober Conversation feels like a series of mini rock operas, underpinned by sometimes playful, often plaintive piano.
In contrast to the lyrical depth charges, the record’s musical highpoints are usually its deftest. The Prefab Sprout-esque keyboard splashes and vocal chimes on its title track are heavenly, while ‘Bubbles In The Gasoline’ has a gloriously goosebump-inducing chorus.
Album keystone is ‘Where You Taking My Baby’ in which the artist faces his abuser, now aged 75. Heart-pounding rhythms counterpoise with tender tremolo-guitar and aching ‘God Only Knows’ melodies as Christinzio somehow confronts and attempts to console. ‘Leaving Camp Oaks’ closes the LP with the sound of a tent zip opening, the sufferer walking free.
Two decades into his nonlinear career, a galvanised BC Camplight is able to implore: “Give me the love, give me the bad times” (‘Bubbles In The Gasoline’). Eyes open, disaster staved for now, there’s never been a better time to join Christinzio’s conversation.