Miracle Mile: Coffee and Stars (Miracle Mile)

 |   |  1 min read

Miracle Mile: Yuri's Dream
Miracle Mile: Coffee and Stars (Miracle Mile)

As with the equally wonderful Blue Nile, this UK band (of Marcus Cliffe and Trevor Jones plus guests) take a leisurely approach to albums and only release something when it is refined and ready.
Miracle Mile too work the treacherous -- and often casually dismissed -- area of "adult pop", that is music based around memorable and sometimes delicate melodies, and lyrics that don't talk down to you.
MM's lyrics are often about various conceptions of "home", finding a place in this world through love and redemption, or allusive and slightly mysterious.
There is a subtle alt.country aspect to what they do (lovely steel guitars) and delivered by Jones' remarkably smooth voice, Miracle Mile's albums have consistently won critical praise if not sales -- so you'd like to think this compilation of 18 songs drawn from all their albums might bring them to greater attention.
Certainly there is a sweetness over the long haul that some might find a touch too rich, but taken together you cannot help but be impressed by people who can write a song inspired by Russian astronaut Yuri Gagarin, reference John Wayne and the Guggenheim Museum, have a song (rightly) picked as one of the best of 2007 by the Sunday Times in Britain -- and still remain below the radar?
I've brought them to attention previously but this compilation available through amazon or their website gives me another opportunity.

Share It

Your Comments

post a comment

More from this section   Music at Elsewhere articles index

George and Queen: Teenagers and Grownups (Universal)

George and Queen: Teenagers and Grownups (Universal)

For their third album, this duo (now a band) out of Dunedin (now Auckland) here deliver a particularly interesting amalgam of radio-friendly pop (the single Hut 234, the delightfully driving... > Read more

Patty Larkin: 25 (Signature)

Patty Larkin: 25 (Signature)

Celebrating 25 years in music usually means a greatest hits, box set or some kind of attention-grabbing project. It is typical and a measure of Larkin's generous nature that rather than go that... > Read more

Elsewhere at Elsewhere

SOUND THINKING #8: The podcast for music people

SOUND THINKING #8: The podcast for music people

The eighth episode of the music podcast in which Marty Duda of 13th Floor hosts some reviewers who discuss new albums. This week Chris Warne, Veronika Bell, Andra Jenkins and I review four new... > Read more

THE BARGAIN BUY: Terry Reid; Original Album Series

THE BARGAIN BUY: Terry Reid; Original Album Series

Because Elsewhere recently essayed the life and work of this British guitar-singer cult figure -- prompted by the release of material recorded at the time of his River album in '73 -- we are... > Read more