Words by Rene Rosierse
James celebrates their 40th anniversary with a new album full of re-recorded classics and hidden gems. For the album they asked conductor Joe Duddell with the ORCA22 Orchestra and the Manchester Inspirational Voices choir directed by Wayne Ellington to accompany them. This resulted in the recently released two-disc vinyl or double CD called ‘Be Opened By The Wonderful’, a great title which suits the album very well.
Listening to the album makes you realise how strong the arrangements of 40 years of James’ songs are, adding the orchestra and choir makes them even more powerful. The album opens with what is in our opinion the strongest rework of their early nineties’ smash hit ‘Sometimes’. This is one of the three songs from the ‘Laid’ album, which turns out has provided the best songs for an extra orchestra and choir. Both ‘Say something’ and title track ‘Laid’ were already many peoples’ favorites in the nineties and are once again the best and strongest songs of the album. With 20 songs on the album (unfortunately ‘Hymn From A Village’ didn’t make the cut) there is not one song that wasn’t worth reworking. Not all are by definition better than the original but they can all be added to the complete discography of 40 years of James.
‘To Be Opened By The Wonderful is a nice retrospective with tracks from the early days like ‘Why So Close’ (1986) until ‘Beautiful Beaches’ from James’ latest and their most critically acclaimed album ‘All The Colours Of You’ (2021). Other impressive reworks are ‘We’re Gonna Miss You’ (now we know where The Slow Show got their sound from), ‘Tomorrow’ (with an amazing horns section) and the critical ‘Hey Ma’ (the boys in body bags coming home in pieces). We’d like to congratulate James with their 40th anniversary and with yet another great album.
The band will play two further unique shows this summer with full orchestra and choir. On the 10th of July James headline The Odeon Of Herodes Atticus, a Roman Theatre on the south slope of the world famous Acropolis in Athens, one of only a handful of rock acts to play the historic venue. They will also play a headline set at Latitude Festival, performing as special guests on the Sunday afternoon at midday, a slot especially created to honour their 40th Anniversary. James’ ‘Be Opened By The Wonderful’ is now available on 2LP, 2CD and all your favourite streaming platforms.
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