release date: Jul. 18, 2005
format: digital
[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,52]
producer: Stuart A. Staples
label: Beggars Banquet - nationality: England, UK
Track highlights: 1. "Somerset House" (feat. Gina Foster) - 2. "Marseilles Sunshine" (feat. Gina Foster) - 3. "Say Something Now" - 3. "Friday Night" - 9. "She Don't Have to Be Good to Me" - 10. "I've Come a Long Way"
Solo studio album debut by lead vocalist Stuart A. Staples of Tindersticks is an album, which has been released at a time when the band is rumored on the verge of breaking up. As the title indicates, the tracks were recorded in the years 2003-2004 and could eventually have been indtended for release with the band but internal conflict led Staples to release the songs under his own name, however, still aided by individual Tindersticks members, such as guitarist Neil Fraser and keyboardist David Boulter, who both were part of the band Asphalt Ribbons together with Staples - a band which preceded the formation of Tindersticks. They appear together with some of the band's regular studio musicians, such as trumpeter Terry Edwards, and a few other studio musicians - including French multi-instrumentalist Yann Tiersen and drummer Thomas Belhom. In addition, British soul vocalist Gina Foster features on several tracks.
Stylistically, this isn't a huge difference to the music by Tindertsicks. However, the album still appears significantly simpler in the arrangements, which really suits the music and not least Staples' dark vocal, which in places stand very much alone without it seeming wrong in any way. Perhaps it was never the intention that these songs should be published as a single work, but it nevertheless proves to be a successful collection of songs that together form a coherent work without fillers, and in this way the album actually appears as a much stronger output than the band's most recent album Waiting for the Moon (2003), which should prove to be the bands final in its original line-up.
[ allmusic.com 4 / 5 stars ]
