137  (2002,  71.30)  ****
	Lay on the Tracks Perpetual Night Shift Kid Chameleon Incubate Doppler Ster Release the Tether How Did We Find Our Way?	137 Reserve Warm Me PVS MD One

	Variations on a Dream  (2003,  63.00)  ****
	We Subside This Will Remain Unspoken Vapour Trails Run Me Through The Bitter Pill Resident Alien Sooner or Later Part Zero	Keep Dreaming Remember Us

	12 Stories Down  [a.k.a. 10 Stories Down]  (2005,  66.58/60.23/118.53)  **½
	Prey for Me It's You and Me The World I Always Dreamed of Oblivion From Where You're Standing Slip Away Watch the World (Turn Grey) Clapham	Catch the Jumping Fool Start Your Descent Take Our Hands The Answers [10... loses four tracks and adds: Wretched Soul Light Up Your Eyes part I - I Light Up Your Eyes part II - Who	Early eds. add 8 Days Later: Sunday - Crash Monday - Sleep Tuesday - Haboob Wednesday - The Snail Song Thursday - Fifty Four Friday - 5 Minutes Saturday - Reverse Sunday - King Street]

	Little Man  (2006,  56.18)  **½
	Dead in the Water God Bless the Child Wilting Violet Wait Run a Mile Little Man November Boxing Day	God Bless the Children Snowdrops We Love You

	What We Have Sown  (2007,  57.31)  *** All You Need to Know Well I Think That's What You Said Take Me With You West Winds Deep Blue World What We Have Sown
	Tightly Unwound  (2008,  59.30)  **½ My Debt to You Shoot First Sinners The Sorry State Tightly Wound My Bleeding Hand Different World And So Say All of You Too Much to Lose
	Someone Here is Missing  (2010,  45.24)  **½ Nothing at Best Wake Up the Dead The State We're in Preparation for Meltdown Barely Breathing Show a Little Love Someone Here is Missing 3000 Days So We Row
	All the Wars  (2012,  45.07)  *** Burning Pieces Warm Seas Last Man Standing All the Wars Build a World Give it Back Someone Pull Me Out One More Step Away Reaching Out

	Magnolia  (2014,  46.17)  **½
	Simple as That Alone at Sea Don't Tell Me Magnolia Seasons Past Coming Home The One You Left to Die Breathe	From Me Sense of Fear A Loneliness Bond

Current availability:

• Sown: Cyclops (UK, now out of print)
• All other titles: KScope

It seems Pineapple Thief started life as a Vulgar Unicorn side-project, lead by VU man Adrian Soord's brother Bruce; VU are supposed to have used Mellotron on a couple of later albums, although I've only heard their first two and it's quite certainly sampled anyway. It seems that PT's second and third releases, 137 and Variations on a Dream, both contain Mellotron samples, despite the sleeve credits for 'Mellotron'. So, are the credited Rhodes and Prophet 5 samples too? Anyway, both albums remind me strongly of that strand of modern British progressive that seems to emanate from the No-Man/Porcupine Tree axis and, specifically, Henry Fool. Moody, introverted music with more than a hint of Radiohead about it, PT disguise their uneasy listening with deceptively smooth tones, allowing the inherent edginess of their sound to creep up on the listener, unnerving them before they've realised what's happened. Variations on a Dream is probably the better of the two albums, as Soord develops his own style, which isn't to denigrate 137 in any way. I suspect the best track over both albums is Variations' closing 16-minute epic, Remember Us, although there's no such thing as a 'bad' track on either release.

Adrian Soord's 'Mellotron' can be heard on several tracks on each album; surely it can't have been that difficult to source a real one for recording? You get the impression that many of these bands couldn't actually care less; as long as an approximation of the sound's there, it's immaterial how it's produced. Perhaps they have a point. However, samples always seem to lose something in translation and are just that little bit too... perfect. However much of an arse-pain a real Mellotron can be to maintain, or even play, 'that' sound just doesn't sound right coming from anything else, especially when it's had its rough edges rounded off, not to mention being looped...

What's happened in such a short space of time? Admittedly, the reviews from here on are being written some years on from the two above, but has my taste changed so much in the meantime? Maybe it has. Anyway, 2005's 12 Stories Down (apparently a 'pre-release version), quickly reissued with a revised tracklisting as 10 Stories Down, is a dreary dirge of an album, the band's previous ability to captivate with their mournful Radioheadisms converted into an ability to bore the listener to distraction. Are there any plus points? Energetic opener (on both versions), the punning Prey For Me, while 12...'s Catch The Jumping Fool has its moments, as does 10...'s Light Up Your Eyes Part II, but as for the rest... Poor Mellotron string and choir samples on a couple of tracks, notably on Light Up Your Eyes Part II, but you really don't need to hear them. Early editions of 10... add a whole extra album, 8 Days Later (8 Days was an earlier bonus release), which might actually be better than its parent album. A couple of notable fakeotron tracks, with choirs and strings on Monday - Sleep and strings on Thursday - Fifty Four.

Little Man isn't any better, frankly, with next to no samplotron, merely some choppy strings on God Bless The Children. For some indefinable reason, 2007's What We Have Sown is a bit of an improvement, strangely, as it's effectively an odds'n'sods collection, rather than an album 'proper'. So why is it (marginally) better? Less heart-rending/breast-beating vocalising? Longer tracks (particularly the twenty minute-plus closing title track)? (Stop raising your eyebrows like that; sometimes longer IS better. So to speak). Anyway, an extra half star. Loads of fakeotron this time round, a major string part opening All You Need To Know, with more of the same on other tracks. 2008's Tightly Unwound is, well, it's another Pineapple Thief album, frankly. If you don't know what they sound like by now, you probably aren't going to bother. Some fakeotron work on a few tracks, but only the most cloth-eared would mistake it for the real thing.

By 2010's Someone Here is Missing, it seems that Pineapple Thief have honed their 'Scott Walker goes prog' style to a keen edge, particularly on closer So We Row, very much the album's best track. String parts on a few tracks are samplotronically inconclusive, although 3000 Days definitely features that familiar sound. 2012's All the Wars is a slight improvement on its predecessor, although nine-minute closer Reaching Out contains both the best and worst elements of the band's sound. Again, one lone samplotron track, with strings on Give It Back, standing out from the real strings on several other tracks. 2014's Magnolia sees the band settling into their prog-end-of-post-rock groove, for better or worse, chiefly the latter, sadly. It's at its best when the band up the volume levels - opener Simple As That, bits of Breathe, Sense Of Fear - but too much of the album's content drifts along a well-worn groove that we've already heard too many times. Possible samplotron strings on the title track, for what it's worth.

So; although I can cautiously recommended 137 and Variations on a Dream, admittedly not for those who can't stand anything that isn't 'uplifting', I can't say the same for the other titles here. Is there such a thing as 'downlifting'? File alongside Henry Fool and Radiohead.

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