release date: Apr. 28, 2008
format: cd
[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,58]
producer: Stuart A. Staples
label: Beggars Banquet - nationality: England, UK
Track highlights: 3. "The Flicker of a Little Girl" - 4. "Come Feel the Sun" - 6. "The Other Side of the World" - 10. "All the Love" (feat. Suzanne Osborne)
7th studio album by Tindersticks following Waiting for the Moon (Jun. 2003) is the band's first studio album in five years, and it's their first since being reduced to a trio, which here count lead vocalist Stuart A. Staples, guitarist Neil Fraser and multi-instrumentalist David Boulter. The album was recorded with a number of other musicians, including French drummer Thomas Belhom (who also contributed on Staples' two solo albums), violinist Sally Hibbert, as well as bassist Dan McKinna, who was later to become a permanent member of the band after this. The album is the band's final album on Beggars Banquet, and it's their first in a long subsequent series of studio releases with Stuart A. Staples as exclusive producer.
Compared to both the most recent album from 2003, as well as previous albums, this new collection appears less orchestrated, although strings are still a strong component of the soundscape.
Admittedly, I wasn't expecting much when this album came out. Imho, Tindersticks had begun an artistic downward spiral, and when I finally played something with the band, it was always earlier albums - music from before Waiting for the Moon. As with that, this one was a another disappointing experience listening to the album the first time, and I had probably made up my mind that this band had peaked and were by now only keeping the pot boiling by simply repeating and varying what they now had already produced. A decade further down the road, I took a different perspective of the period and of this very album. When you examine what they later released, you already here find a more playful and experimental approach to music, where they are in search of new ways, new paths for their music and which exactly point to their completely original later releases.
The album's printing, design and cover was made by Stuart Staples' wife, Suzanne Osborne, who also sings on track #10.
[ allmusic.com 4 / 5, PopMatters 3,5 / 5, Spin 3 / 5 stars ]
