Introducing The Analogues Sideshow. The Analogues

In 2022 The Analogues did what I had hoped for for some years. The best The Beatles cover/re-enactment band in the world came up with an album of original songs. And it is just as worthwhile listening to as I had come to expect.

Over the past, at least, six years you have come across The Analogues on this blog as the band worked its way through the studio albums catalogue of The Beatles. Songs the most famous English band ever never played live themselves nor had the ability to play live in some cases. The Analogues not only play these songs, they play them on all the original instruments as well. Not THE guitar or THE organ, but the exact same type. The hunt for the instruments most have cost a fortune and allows for great museum artefacts when the band retires some time into the future. All to great effect live.

The Analogues not only holds a band of great musicians, there are also at a minimum two songwriters who have proved their own in the past, Felix Maginn and Diederik Nomden. The band does not stray far from what The Analogues usually play. All the songs are in the vein of The Beatles or more precisely the solo years. The quality never tips the original four piece but certainly rivals with solo albums by all four. Some songs could have been on McCartney III for example or a George Harrison album and be among the better tunes.

Introducing The Analogues Sideshow is an album The Beatles fans that enjoy going to the band's shows can buy blindfolded. The band delivers its own music with so much self-confidence. The Analogues know what they want and have the quality to deliver. All the songs are clever pop songs, seldom of the easiest kind, but all stick to the ear immediately. Stylistically the band makes some nice moves to make sure the album sounds varied, with a keen ear for the many details.

What is a smart move, is that most songs are played by the original five members, so they can play the songs affordably live if they so choose to. Actually, something to look forward to, as The Analogues is far more than just the ersatz Beatles. This is a quality band in its own right.

The Analogues did something I had hoped they would one day do and it paid off. The sideshow album is a very nice one, easily competing with most of the solo albums and that is a major compliment.

Wout de Natris