''No Need to Be Downhearted'' is an album by

The Electric Soft Parade The Electric Soft Parade are an English psychedelic pop band from Brighton, comprising brothers Alex and Thomas White, the creative core of the band, as well as a number of other musicians with whom they record and perform live, most recently ...

, released in 2007. The first single was "If That's the Case, Then I Don't Know". The album was named after a lyric from The Fall's song "15 Ways" from their album ''

Middle Class Revolt ''Middle Class Revolt'' is the sixteenth album by the Fall, released in 1994 in the UK on Permanent Records and in the US on Matador Records. It spent one week on the UK Albums Chart at number 48, a marked contrast to the top 10 debut of their p ...

''.

Production

Unlike previous releases, the album was self-produced and recorded entirely digitally, using a demo version of

ProTools Pro Tools is a digital audio workstation (DAW) developed and released by Avid Technology (formerly Digidesign) for Microsoft Windows and macOS. It is used for music creation and production, sound for picture (sound design, audio post-productio ...

, lending the album a hard, brittle sound. Compared to the relatively restrained arrangement and mix of earlier work, the album is richly layered - at times cluttered and busy - a result of the bands' trademark 'loose over-dubbing' (a technique whereby any given melody is partly or wholly improvised, then double-tracked approximately, often giving the track in question a slightly out-of-focus, seasick quality). The LP also features wide use of sampled

Mellotron The Mellotron is an electro-mechanical musical instrument developed in Birmingham, England, in 1963. It is played by pressing its keys, each of which pushes a length of magnetic tape against a capstan, which pulls it across a playback head. A ...

and

MIDI MIDI (; Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is a technical standard that describes a communications protocol, digital interface, and electrical connectors that connect a wide variety of electronic musical instruments, computers, and re ...

percussion, mostly filtered through heavy reverb and compression. On release, reviewers also noted the synth-like sounds on many tracks. In fact, a large portion of the guitars on the album were DI'd (plugging the guitar lead directly into the desk rather than mic'ing an amplifier). The gain on the channel would then be turned up full, resulting in a saturated, squarewave-like tone.

Track listing

# "No Need to Be Downhearted (Part 1)" – 2:04 # "Life in the Backseat" – 3:08 # "Woken by a Kiss" – 5:57 # "If That's the Case, Then I Don't Know" – 4:57 # "Shore Song/Surfacing" – 4:25 # "Misunderstanding" – 3:37 # "Secrets" – 3:46 # "Cold World/Starry Nite #1" – 5:32 # "Have You Ever Felt Like It's Too Late?" – 3:28 # "Come Back Inside" – 3:50 # "Appropriate Ending" – 3:01 # "No Need to Be Downhearted (Part 2)" – 5:12

References

2007 albums The Electric Soft Parade albums Truck Records albums {{2000s-indie-rock-album-stub