If the Brett Anderson of today has one main problem, it's that he's not the Brett Anderson of yesterday. The 25 year old Brett Anderson...... more
If the Brett
Anderson of today has one main problem, it's that he's not the Brett
Anderson of yesterday. The 25 year old Brett
Anderson for instance was impossible to ignore for his fiery androgyny, confrontational lyricism and devil may care detachment. That Brett
Anderson was also affiliated to virtuoso guitarist Bernard Butler, cementing one of indie's great partnerships, responsible even, some might say, for Britpop itself. And that's where his points of reference stop for many -- testament to the infamy of Suede's debut but not saying an awful lot for the relatively consistent body of work he has amassed since then. Even his and Butler's rewarding 2004 reformation as The Tears didn't capture imaginations. Without factoring in serious drug addiction and his fall from favour you'd expect bitterness then. And Brett
Anderson the debut solo album is not short on that. He is bitter about love, he is bitter about addiction, he is bitter about the passé materialism of the world around him. The music is fairly standard without a collaborator to rely on, notwithstanding some lovely string-laden textures throughout, but the lyrical content and particularly its delivery stands firm. He still sounds like a rain lashed Bowie with a broken heart doing Morrissey, nasally, and that is enough to carry songs like "Love Is Dead", "Song For My Father" and the bold "The More We Possess The Less We Own Of Ourselves" through with a character that remains his own, regardless of age. --James Berry
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