Bill's back. And a big part of me wants to say HE'S BACK, YEAH! And The Painter is a cracking album, arguably his best of the 21st century. It's still nowhere near the first four Strange Cargo albums, of which the fourth - Hinterland - is undeniably the best, but on the evidence of the last 20 years, he's back on track.
I'm convinced the mighty Ray of Light by Madonna is what ... I'm loathe to say, ruined him, but his solo output after the success of that, for him, was patchy at best and he seemed to be heading in a direction I didn't really understand. There was still some great production work to come from him, but his solo stuff just didn't have that strange [pun intended] and slightly sinister feel his Strange Cargo albums had. It felt generic, derivative and unimaginative, very little had any impact and listening to them again in anticipation of this album they still fell... empty.
The two new 'singles', Colours Colliding with Polly Scattergood and the sublime Bank of Wildflowers with Georgia suggested this might be something a little more Orbit than usual and when it landed it did feel as though, like many other performers past their prime, he'd managed to find that thing that made his as good as he was again.
The problem was I realised that after two listens, I kind of drifted away after track four and didn't really find my way back until about track nine; when I sat down to make my initial review notes I found I couldn't even remember them, so I did what any good and patient reviewer would do, I gave it a couple of days off and went back into it with fresher ears.
As I worked my through it again, I noticed that tracks I'd dismissed were actually quite good - Heshima Kwa Hukwe - and that while very pretty, Colours Colliding is the weakest track on the album and gets a little repetitive and boring after a few listens. I also noticed a distinct feel to it, almost like it was an autobiographical 'painting' of his musical career, because there's elements of Madonna, All Saints, Torch Song and Bassomatic, plus the occasional nod to the Strange Cargo era. It's largely a pop album with that slightly off-kilter feel Orbit is so good at bringing out in his production work with others. There is also Beth Orton, Katie Melua, Natalie Walker, Ali Love, Georgia and the aforementioned Scattergood all bringing their distinct vocals to the party and I get a nostalgic feeling about it.
However, there are tracks on the album that are, like on many of his good albums, a bit meh, almost like filler, but the good tracks are very good and there's a feeling of finality about this album; like 'this is it, there ain't going to be any more' and given he's 65 and been in ill-health a lot in the last 10 years or so, perhaps he wants to go out on a high and if that's the case then he can be pretty pleased with this.
Stand out tracks (so far): Bank of Wildflowers, Planet Sunrise, Second Moon and Gold Coast.
7/10
No comments:
Post a Comment