Further Complications

Jarvis Cocker - Further Complications
released 18 May 2009 on Rough Trade

If you fought in the Britpop Wars of the mid-1990s, you’ll know there was much more depth than the media-constructed Blur vs. Oasis feud. Supergrass, Ash and Saint Etienne all played their part but at the cultural coalface, just behind Albarn and the brothers Gallagher was our Jarv. The thing is, Pulp were never a Britpop band, not really. They’d been a going concern since the late 1970s (originally under the name Arabacus Pulp) and were simply in the right place with the right songs at the right time.

After a promising start to his solo career with Jarvis, Cocker has roped in prolific producer Steve Albini for Further Complications. Albini’s most famous knob-twiddling took place on Nirvana’s swansong, In Utero, so it may initially seem an odd choice of partner for anyone remotely familiar with Pulp’s keyboard-heavy pop stylings. From the very beginning of Further Complications, the Albini hallmarks are most definitely in evidence. The title track is built around an alt.rock distorted riff and has an urgency unlike the laissez-faire approach that characterises much of Cocker’s previous work. Even on lines such as “I was not born in wartime/I was not born in pain or poverty,” Jarvis is imploring us to listen to his message.

However, like the chicken-egg conundrum, it’s impossible to know to what extent Albini is the primary root of this new sound. Did Albini drive Cocker down this alternative road or did Cocker have the idea in mind and decide Albini was simply the best sonic architect? The alternative rock theme continues on recent download-only single, Angela. Here, the production saves what is, in essence, a fairly basic pub-rock ditty. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said about following track, Pilchard. Everyone has differing tastes when it comes to music, but it’s difficult to imagine being excited at a one-note riff and the repeating of the pathetic quasi-threat “you pilchard, you pilchard.” But hey, each to their own and all that.

We’re then pleasingly back in vintage Jarvis territory with Leftovers, which uses Mick Ronson guitars to great effect. In the 80s it was Morrissey, in the 21st Century it’s Alex Turner but from the class of the 1990s, no-one can turn a phrase like Cocker. An opening line of “I met her at the museum of palaeontology/And I make no bones about it” displays clear evidence that he’s still got it when it matters most. In Cocker’s inimitable way, he’s made something which manages to be gauche and slightly perverse, yet somehow pretty damn sexy at the same time beneath it all.

I Never Said I Was Deep is packed full of theatrical sighs and palm-to-brow emotional gestures as you’d wish but then we’re half-way through and the wheels start to come off somewhat. Homewrecker! showcases the fact that, when all is said and done, Jarvis isn’t really a singer, and ends with frenzied screaming. Yes, that’s right, screaming. The rest of Further Complications sadly fades into relative obscurity and is largely forgettable. The tracks aren’t exactly bad - in fact, the lo-fi fuzz-rock of Fuckingsong is thrilling - but they lack a certain something. Caucasian Blues is awkward and ham-fisted (“All gather round, I’ll tell you what it’s all about/You find a good woman and then you fuck her ‘til your hair falls out”)and Slush sounds like Yo La Tengo on a bad day.

Just when it seems all is lost, along comes the final track, You’re In My Eyes (Discosong). It may be going out on a limb but it needs to be said: this one song is the single best thing Jarvis Cocker has been involved with in almost fifteen years. Imagine Jarvis’ trademark purr over a backing track that sounds like The Average White Band and Barry White’s Love Unlimited Orchestra jamming in space. How many disco songs can you think of that are over eight minutes long yet never outstay their welcome? Surely, except for Donna Summer’s I Feel Love, there can’t be any. Yet that’s what You’re In My Eyes (Discosong) is and it makes fantastic use of light and shade that’s all too rare in 21st Century music. Vocals whisper in from the left side, then the right, the band rise to a climax then bring it back to a relaxed groove and then to top it all off, they do it all over again. In short, it’s a revelation.

As it turns out, Further Complications is an apt title for an frustrating mixed-bag of an album. Initial listens may lead you to believe it’s a little non-descript, but there’s reward in perseverance. Jarvis Cocker’s diversions into scuzzy riff-based rock and glam disco are to be encouraged and although it’s unclear where he’ll go from here, we’re certainly better off for having him around.

Gary Go

Gary Go - Gary Go
released 25 May 2009 on Polydor

Firstly, a disclaimer. Music journalists, and particularly amateur music journalists, do what they do because they love music. Therefore, despite the fact that sometimes it may seem otherwise, we don’t want to write hatchet-job reviews all the time (however cathartic it may be). Ideally, we want the next undiscovered masterpiece to land in our lap so we can break out the superlatives and turn people on to something that’s really special. Then again, you can only work with what you’re given, so away we go.

Do you find One Republic a little bit too hedonistic and thrilling? Are The Fray a bit too rock n’ roll for your tastes? Does the very mention of Maroon 5 leave you cowering under your duvet because their music is just too damn terrifying? If you’ve answered ‘yes’ to any of the above questions, then good news - Gary Go is here for you! Fresh from supporting Take That on their recent tour, the man Q have described as a “one-man Coldplay” (though that’s being more than harsh on Chris Martin’s men) releases his début album.

Throughout the eleven (though it feels like many more) tracks that make up Gary Go, Gary demonstrates his mastery of soulless, vapid pop, apparently designed specifically as a bed for highlights packages on low-budget reality TV shows. Polished to the point of being nausea-inducing, this album has been packaged to a precise remit: robotic, stadium-rock-lite that follows the tried and tested formula of acoustic quiet bit, drums come in, second verse, chorus, repeat to fade so strictly that you’ll feel like banging your head against a brick wall and/or adding your own beat-box percussion.

All that isn’t even the worst thing; the vocals and lyrics are beyond awful. Gary Go strains his way through his songs with a voice dripping thick with false sincerity. What is probably intended to sound emotive and meaningful just comes across as, well, constipation to be brutally honest. Factor in lyrics that a schoolchild would baulk at if given them to sing in a school musical production and you have a recipe for possibly the worst album ever to be put on general release.

The album begins with Open Arms as Gary Go whines “whatever happened to truth?” and it’s all downhill from there. There are too many examples of pathetic pleased-with-itself, thinks-its-profound, cod-psychology within Gary Go to list here, but there are a few “highlights.” Today’s favourites are: “We are a miracle wrapped up in chemicals” (from Wonderful) and “I’m finding it hard to fill in the pros on my ‘Reasons for Living’ list” (from So-So, a kind of inferior version of the Goo Goo Dolls‘ Iris). When there’s a wealth of talent in music today plus an exhaustive back catalogue of riches you could immerse yourself in, it’s difficult to imagine who could lap up this rubbish.

After listening to Gary Go in its entirety, it’s not an exaggeration to say it’s more poisonous than anything to come out of the Simon Cowell stable of identikit svengali-controlled pop. It’d be preferable to listen to the soundtrack to High School Musical than this; at least Zac Eyebrows, Cordon Bleu and the girl who had naked pictures on the Internet serve up something which tries to be fun, bouncy and doesn’t take itself too seriously. After a few minutes of Gary Go’s morose, self-obsessed attempt at music, an hour of jumping around to choreographed dance routines with a fixed grin on your face is a much more attractive prospect.

It’s difficult to know what message Gary Go wants to send out with this LP. Half of the tracks are a rallying call-to-arms that a motivational speaker would find ridiculous and the other half are wallowing, boo-hoo-the-world-is-mean-sometimes mope-fests. For example, on Heart and Soul, Gary Go sings “Nothing will matter, nothing at all, if you don’t follow your heart and soul” but on the very next track (Speak), it’s “I’m sorry I spoke, I had all my eggs in one basket; it broke.” The belief that authenticity is all has led Gary Go to create eleven tracks of bland, contemptible music that’s little more than an exercise in lowest common denominator box-ticking.

So, you can probably tell that it’s recommended you don’t buy Gary Go, unless of course every day you wake up hopeful of a Daniel Powter comeback. Some of the orchestral arrangements are pretty listenable (the brass and strings on Brooklyn are certainly above-average) but that’s really clutching at straws. Gary Go is an unforgivably turgid album that is bad in practically every way imaginable.

Hey, you know what? That was cathartic.

Quicken The Heart

Maximo Park - Quicken The Heart
released 11 May 2009 on Warp

Over the last twelve months, it seems that a trend has arisen where after the “difficult second album” you have the “even more difficult third album.” New wave Geordies, Maximo Park, burst onto the scene in the middle of the decade with A Certain Trigger, three months after Bloc Party’s Silent Alarm and a year after Franz Ferdinand’s eponymous début. All three were Mercury nominated (and in the case of Franz Ferdinand, actually won the poisoned chalice of an award) and, if you were to believe the press at the time, heralded a new age in British rock. The media fell over themselves in thrall to the 80s influences, the jerky rhythms, the synths and the fact there was boys with guitars playing music you could actually dance to.

In the cold light of day, that all seemed a bit premature. All three bands struggled with their follow-ups (Maximo Park’s Our Earthly Pleasures, Bloc Party’s A Weekend In The City and Franz Ferdinand’s You Could Have It So Much Better…) and this worrying trend has continued for Franz Ferdinand and Bloc Party on their recent third efforts (Tonight and Intimacy respectively). These albums may have peaked in the upper reaches of the charts and had impressive first-week sales figures, but fell away relatively quickly as the former flavours of the month struggle to conjure up something to beat that “shock of the new” when first albums can sell tens of thousands on little more than industry hype.

So, onto Quicken The Heart. Initial listens suggest that Maximo Park intend to recapture past glories by doing the same as they have before, yet with more maturity and less intensity. Whether the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” approach is a good or bad thing is up to you; it never seemed to do AC/DC any harm, for example. However, as the melodies seep into your brain, Quicken The Heart reveals itself to be professional and adept, if not exhilarating and ground-breaking.

Frontman Paul Smith is one of the great performers and characters of the 21st Century (he reportedly asks for a Vivienne Westwood tie and “mystery paperback” on the rider at gigs) but he’s more restrained than usual here. It’s a shame since when he gives it his all, like on album highlight A Cloud of Mystery, it’s a joy to the ears.

Lead single, The Kids Are Sick Again, isn’t particularly arresting upon first hearing, and its subject of “the effect of advertisements on the youth of today” is unlikely to have you racing to the iTunes Store. However, like much of Quicken The Heart, give it time and its charms - in this case, a great off-kilter chorus - reveal themselves to you.

It’s tempting to suggest this album is world-weary and Maximo Park are going through the motions - maybe Quicken The Heart is a response to A Certain Trigger? They’re older and wiser, but as a result, more jaded and cynical. Who knows? What remains clear is that on eleven of the twelve tracks showcased, Smith still has a keen eye for detail. Tanned is probably the best example of this, as it describes how “Summer glazed our skin, but it scorched everything” and “she kept her jeans on in bed.”

Whilst Tanned and plenty others do a good job of chronicling young lust, Let’s Get Clinical, is wretched and the only excuse for it is that Maximo Park want the “Bad Sex In Fiction” award to be extended to music as well as literature. Now, a quick word of advice: any girl who can be seduced by lines such as “I’d like to map your body out, inch by inch, North to South, and I’m free for circumnavigation” is either a lonely and desperate fetishist, a dangerous axe murderer or more likely, both. The pay-off line of “Bare ankles used to mean adventure, with you they still do” may hark back to simpler times but by then, Let’s Get Clinical will have left you feeling so sordid you’ll want to take a shower.

Quicken The Heart has lots going for it and represents a more grown-up sound for Maximo Park. However, there’s an unshakeable feeling that they’re going through the motions a bit too frequently and that this represents a step backwards for a once fresh and exciting band. Unfortunately, it seems the curse of the third album may have struck again.