Saint Etienne: Tales From Turnpike House : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

A concept album detailing a day in the life of the tenants of a fictitious apartment block, Tales From Turnpike House is as varied in musical styles as its disparate cast of characters suggests. "Milk Bottle Symphony" introduces "Mrs. Doris Brown" with her "quilted dressing gown" and "Emily Rose at thirty-one," who's got "twenty minutes to get her homework done," using layered harmonies, strings and disco beats. "Side Streets" is an electro-samba treat, where sweet and sassy singer Sarah Cracknell risks walking a sketchy route home because "if I let myself believe all the bad press and all the stories/I wouldn't set a foot outside." Much as their Finisterre DVD did last year, Saint Etienne's Tales From Turnpike House -- an unabashedly joyful celebration of being British -- could make an Anglophile out of anyone.