{"id":29833,"date":"2025-08-11T05:30:35","date_gmt":"2025-08-11T09:30:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=29833"},"modified":"2025-08-11T07:39:59","modified_gmt":"2025-08-11T11:39:59","slug":"album-review-the-bablers-like-the-first-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2025\/08\/11\/album-review-the-bablers-like-the-first-time\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: The Bablers &#8212; Like the First Time"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-29834\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/bablers_first.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"350\" height=\"350\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/bablers_first.jpg 350w, https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/bablers_first-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/bablers_first-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px\" \/>The luxurious pop rock of The Bablers is held in great esteem here at Musoscribe World HQ. The chiming guitars, tasty and supremely catchy guitar licks, the creamy vocal harmonies and memorable melodies (oh, and thoughtful arrangements) all add up to some of the best music of its kind. Their 2021 album <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2021\/07\/22\/album-review-the-bablers-psychadilly-circus\/\"><i>Psychadilly Circus<\/i><\/a> is a fave.<\/p>\n<p>As it happens, The band made an earlier record, 1998\u2019s <i>Like the First <\/i><i>T<\/i><i>ime<\/i>. Long out of print, it\u2019s newly reissued by Big Stir. All of the virtues of their more recent album \u2013 including Arto Tamminen\u2019s eerily Lennonesque vocal character \u2013 are on brilliant display here. Subtlety and rockingness coexist comfortably. \u201cTogether Forever\u201d sounds like a <i>Double Fantasy<\/i> outtake \u2013 no; strike that: it\u2019s too good to have been an outtake. The peppy melody of \u201cOne of those Dreams\u201d would have fit nicely on the soundtrack of <i>A Hard Day\u2019s Night<\/i>. \u201cSometimes\u201d has a character reminiscent of George Harrison\u2019s <i>Living in the Material World<\/i>-era work.<\/p>\n<p>Don\u2019t let the Beatles-related references give the impression that The Bablers are Fab copyists; my sense isn\u2019t that they\u2019re aiming for a Merseybeat-ish vibe, but that the influence is simply baked into their musical DNA. \u201cThinking of You\u201d combines a Peter Gunn theme lick with British Invasion flavors. \u201cMr. King\u201d shows that The Bablers can effortlessly pivot to country-influenced balladry. \u201cThat Little Something\u201d conjures an early \u201870s, AM Gold, Gilbert O\u2019Sullivan meets Gerry Rafferty kind of feel.<\/p>\n<p>The albums unfolds to reveal gem after gem, and the quality never ebbs. The deeply melancholy \u201cWhere the Wind Blows Free\u201d takes its time to develop, but it\u2019s worth the wait. It\u2019s a perfect set-ender. Here\u2019s hoping that the reissue of this nearly-overlooked classic is a stopgap measure to keep us occupied wile The Bablers craft yet another winning record. I\u2019ll be waiting with anticipation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The luxurious pop rock of The Bablers is held in great esteem here at Musoscribe World HQ. The chiming guitars, tasty and supremely catchy guitar licks, the creamy vocal harmonies [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29834,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[62,64,65],"tags":[4598],"class_list":["post-29833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rawk","category-reissue","category-review","tag-the-bablers","cat-62-id","cat-64-id","cat-65-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29833"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29833\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29886,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29833\/revisions\/29886"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}