the sleepy jackson - personality
the return of luke steele to many will be a joyous addition to 2006, as i seem to recall his debut being adored by many. despite all the love, i remained ambivalent to the whole thing, however, upon hearing the recent epic pop single, 'god lead your soul', the scales fell away and i was rather keen to hear the new album in all its glory.
initial listens have easily proven that the single was not to be a one off of over the top widescreen pop production, as the music is full rich orchestral pop music, the likes of which will impress fans of the electric light orchestra, flaming lips/mercury rev et al, and as has been mentioned in several reviews, brian wilson, not forgetting the masters of the subversive pop world, 10cc. luke has definitely used his power with the record label and managed to get a serious budget to spread across the albums 13 tracks with real orchestrations (the 20/20 orchestra), and a massive array of musicians to flesh out the sonic excess.
from the strange self written sleevenotes (put down on the 20th march 2006 fact fans), the albums artwork ( the inner sleeve is some kind of last supper depiction, with visual reference to roy orbison and possibly fights with various inner demons), and several track titles, all of which seems to indicate that during the making of this album, luke has undergone some massive religious experience, i think he wants people to know that he has found the lord, 'its time for the poeple to sing out and praise the lord and be saved again'. normally this type of overt declaration would make me run a mile, but, when the setting and quality of the songs are as strong and beautifully harmonic as the sugar coated, 'i understand what you want but i just don't agee' then it's hard to apply any hard and fast level of cynicism.
whether this is all one big dose of irony wrapped up in multi layered aor styled rock-n-pop is something we'll probably never get to find out, but i for one don't care as the final results are easily one of the best albums of 2006, simple as that.
a glorious album that reveals itself on a listen by listen basis - which are always the best aren't they?