Best of 2016:Tindersticks "The Waiting Room" (2016)

The Waiting Room
relase date: Jan. 22, 2016
format: cd
[album rate: 4 / 5] [4,14]
producer: Stuart A. Staples
label: Lucky Dog / City Slang - nationality: England, UK

Track highlights: 2. "Second Chance Man" - 3. "Were We Once Lovers?" (4 / 5) - 5. "Hey Lucinda" (feat. Lhasa de Sela) - 7. "How He Entered" (4,5 / 5) (live) - 8. "The Waiting Room" (4 / 5) - 10. "We Are Dreamers!" - 11. "Like Only Lovers Can" (4,5 / 5)

11th studio album by Tindersticks much to the usual produced by the band's frontman and main songwriter and composer Stuart Staples. In addition to lead singer Staples, the band here consists of Neil Fraser on guitars, David Boulter on piano, Dan McKinna on bass, and with Earl Harvin on drums and percussion - the same quintet that stood behind the two most recent albums, Across Six Leap Years (2013) and The Something Rain (2012), which both present the simple and yet complex combo of chamber pop mixed with a strong inspiration from jazz.

The Waiting Room is another very fine studio release from a band who have really understood how to reinvent themselves after a few years of searching for past greatness.

The song "Hey Lucinda" is said to be a song begun a decade earlier that has had many takes on final versions. During a visit to Montreal, Staples recorded a vocal version with Mexican-American singer Lhasa de Sela, who appears here on the final version [de Sela died in 2010].

My first impression of the album was good, but after another six months of constantly playing the album, tracks as well as the whole album only kept growing on me, and I have to admit that these Brits have done it again and simply made Album Of The Year. The Waiting Room is no less than one of the band's absolute best and can only be recommended.

[ allmusic.com 3,5 / 5 stars ]

2016 Favourite releases: 1. Tindersticks The Waiting Room - 2. Ukendt Kunstner Den anden side - 3. Bob Mould Patch the Sky

   

inlay photos by Richard Dumas

<  show lyrics >

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"How He Entered"

"This is how he entered
How he came in
With an open heart and his eyes wide
A rubber in his pocket
Without socks, and a skip in his step
In an ill-fitting suit with something up his sleeve
A slither of a dream, a last gem
And the fear in his eyes of how dear it was held

This is how he entered
How he came in
Falling from the back of a transit van
Crumpled, desperate for relief from the humdrum
Each step a story, a song in the making
Each step cemented the living
The broken hearts left behind
They were just material to him
And how they would come to pursue him
How they would eventually come to drag him back in

This is how he entered
How he came in
With his hair cold he stood in the doorway
Like a lost dog holding his missing poster
Just to be sure - to be sure everyone knew just how lost he was
Telling his story he broke onions and sang songs
The street walkers carol
Soft tissue
The fear of emptiness
Planting holes to grow some money
These were his songs
And this was how he came in

This was how he entered
How he came in
With chips in his pocket
Just waiting for the chance to get into the game
With his head combed and the checks on his shirt just right
He sang of it but knew nothing of it
The house of cards by an open window
Pack of frazzles
An unsolvable puzzle
He knew nothing of what you needed from him
He knew nothing of giving
He only knew of his desires
He only knew of that woman

This is how he entered
This is how he came in

This is how he entered
How he came in"

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