A Spoiler-Free Advance Joint Statement from Madness Information Service and Stateside Madness

Ladies and gentlemen, the new Madness album is great. No, honestly: Theatre of the Absurd presents C’est La Vie is staggeringly damned masterpiece-level great. Seven years on from the last Madness long player, you can now start your final countdown. We hope you’re all pre-ordered or pre-saved and pre-ready for it to be delivered to you and your chosen listening device upon November 17. You can have a nice listen by following the mixed Madness playlist prepared by MIS’s own Paul Rodgers here:

Without more ado, MIS and Stateside Madness have teamed up for a petit preview of the album (of the pure joy to our ears), as well as news of our joint international coverage set for album release week.

We are so thankful that after 44 years of their ups and their downs, our best-loved band is still capable of producing music at an astonishing level. Madheads worldwide are on the cusp discovering of something very special.

There’s trademark nuttiness to giggle at, and moving deeper sounds and lyrics in other places. There is nursery rhyme poetry, both warm and caustic wit, heartfelt sorrow, deep tragedy and sweetness within the words. From simple, effective musicality to layered epic arrangements in the songs’ instrumentation. There is danceable pop, swayable slinky ballads, and a bit more rocking funk unleashed than ever before. 

There’s strings, brass and added percussion, and the band recognisable underneath, and at other times a self-produced shift to new sounds to frame their own penned songs as best fits. Plenty of sweet sax solos, new guitar sounds (Thommo has praised these as turned “up to 11”), plenty of Thommo vocals too, and recognisable Suggs in varied modes: sweet soulful Suggs, funny nutty Suggs, even a loudhailer rallying Suggs. With extra vocals from Spider J and Darren Fordham adding touches like on the previous Madness album and Lee’s solo records.

You’ll find a lot of little echoes of Madness past. In several cases you can trace some of their best ideas reframed – not as derivative rehash, but in a way that reflects palpable artistic growth. Some of the arrangements adhere to the band’s classic approach, while others stretch out in an explosion of downright creative weirdness.

We’ve spotted music influences from the ’70s and ’80s both within and beyond the band’s usual influences, as well as cultural and historic references galore. The obsessives among us will delight in hours of indexing, footnoting and debating every last obscure allusion and borrowed riff.

To sum up this album experience: Theatre of the Absurd presents C’est La Vie is most certainly a concept album, arguably even more so than Norton Folgate was. And yet this is not a unified band sound, not in the way the best Madness albums like Folgate or Absolutely have generally managed. This is a multidirectional effort led by the sensibilities of the individual songwriters to great merit. 

The variety of styles on offer makes for a packed selection box for Madness fans. There are songs matching the Barson, Barson/Thompson, McPherson & Foreman/Thompson writing teams’ best efforts, and even the more recent Woodgate (think “Leon”) mode that brings fresh great new tunes. But get ready for the rise of Foreman solo writing now in the mix, pushing the envelope on Madness’s sound the most.

Through a half-necessary conceit of theatrical act breaks, Martin Freeman’s spoken words waypoint directional shifts and bring a sense of grandeur. What is the three-act structure all about? To paint a simplified impression in broad strokes, the first part of the album goes heavy on the more familiar Madness sound. The middle section is anchored around three of the most beautiful and glorious Madness songs you will ever hear. And interlaced with those, the final stretch includes three of the more bizarre and challenging ear-shockers Madness ever dared to record.

It’s so much fun. With all the risks taken, not every song will please every fan – at least not on first listen. The album is a grower, in the second half particularly, and hopefully many won’t dwell on the progressive stylistic shifts and just sing, sing, sing. It‘s a very singalong album once it beds in.

Theatre of the Absurd presents C’est La Vie starts with audience noise and ends with applause befitting the tragicomic title framing and panic-stricken cover art.

We think you’ll agree they’ve earned that ovation. Boys, take your curtain call before we drop the needle for the next play. Encore, encore, š’il vous plaît !

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Next week Stateside Madness and MIS join forces in greater detail and dive in track-by-track. In the news email issue and on the SSM blog, we commence a two-part massive theatrically absurd review, entitled: SSM and MIS present Absurdlutely Mad: Une Critique Musicale

• Part 1 (LP 1), focussing on mostly the currently streaming songs, is coming November 12.
• Part 2 (LP 2) comes online November 17 (release date) on the Stateside blog and on the 19th in MIS email, to accompany your album purchase with a deep dive review of the remaining mysterious tracks.

With more MIS and SSM coverage to follow in celebration of the event of curtain up on new Madness soon.

Mr Beckett sir, the audience is seated and awaits a treat. Oh lucky fans!

Jonathan Young and Donald Trull