release date: May 29, 2006
format: cd
[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,68]
producer: Stuart A. Staples
label: Beggars Banquet - nationality: England, UK
Track highlights: 1. "Goodbye to Old Friends" - 2. "There Is a Path" - 3. "Which Way the Wind" - 4. "This Road Is Long" (Duet sung with Maria McKee) - 5. "One More Time" - 7. "That Leaving Feeling" (Duet sung with Lhasa de Sela) (4 / 5) - 10. "Pulling in to the Sea"
2nd solo outing by Stuart A. Staples following his solo debut Lucky Dog Recordings 03-04 from 2005 is as the title indicates a 'farewell album'. Like his debut, this was made with the aid from Staples' old associates from the band Asphalt Ribbons, and who both took part in the formation of Tindersticks: guitarist Neil Fraser and keyboardist David Boulter. Other former acquaintances count drummer Thomas Belhom, trumpeter and saxophonist Terry Edwards, and vocalist Gina Foster. In addition, two of the songs are formed as duets, one features Maria McKee, the other features Lhasa de Sela.
The album is a fine small departure from Staples' first solo with a stronger sense of a collection that were written and recorded within a continuous period, where both lyrics and music revolve around the same themes. The album has more of the well-known chamber pop arrangements from Tindersticks back again, but it's still a more scraped-down version and simpler than the band's most recent albums, which were heavily instrumented in places. To me, this sound more like linked to Simple Pleasure (1999) and Curtains (1997). Here, the songs may be bloated and grandiose, while the whole is kept quite strict and simple.
Leaving Songs is once again better than Tindersticks have proved to be lately, and perhaps with this, Staples cements that an era has come to an end and a new one may take its beginning. In any case, the band Tindersticks is from hereon founded on the cast Staples welcomed on his solo albums.
[ allmusic.com 4 / 5 stars ]
