oh oh.
i have just dropped this new album into the computer and the oracle for everything shiny disc related, (ie. gracenote), as of today, knows not of this forthcoming album.
i guess no-one has entered all the necessary details into the system.
now normally with indie small scale releases this is totally understandable, but this is a major label album getting some heavy promotion.
after all, even a lo-tech unknown website has in the build up to this release has received :
– one retrospective of chris’s work with soundgarden and audioslave
– one nicely packaged 4 track sampler
– one cd single
– and now the album proper.
so despite the fact no-one out there has put in the time to get the details online, someone out there really wants me to check out this stuff.
now while i have had listening periods of rock-n-roll excess during which the two bands mentioned earlier have been blasted out loud-n-proper @ ireallylovemusic hq, i think i can safely say that the same isn’t going to happen with this hard going album. all the ingredients are there, the big radio friendly rock production (steve lillywhite), the gruff but oh-so-emotional vocals, the mix of hard rockin’ and soft fm radio sanctioned ballads, the moody photos in the booklet, but the problem is that the songs are, well, rather forgetful.
one major problem is the albums second track, poison eye. this really begins to seriously annoy after a few minutes, the chorus hook is just dreadful with chris sounding in almost as much pain as the listener. now, embedded deeper within the 16 tracks such a hiccup could be forgiven, but to place such a travesty so early on makes it difficult to summon up the energy to listen any further. this problem is compounded by the following arms around your love where chris strains and pains to tell us over and over, you’re just going to have to take it hmmm. thankfully, the album isn’t a total dud, and things get a little better with the laid back horn filled safe and sound managing to impress, as do a few other tracks here and there, but perhaps the vocals of chris are best suited to working with others to streamline the obvious talent in a more manageable form.
oh, and the less said about the cover of michael jacksons billie jean the better.
more detail : here