A welcome return but an unfocused experience
Aussiemystic | Wollstonecraft, NSW Australia | 07/26/2008
(3 out of 5 stars)
"Stewart's first full studio album in 12 years (since Control Data) should be welcome news for any fan.
The good: it's an (almost) completely new album.
The bad: it's a bit short, and lacking in coherence.
First - the good. Stewart is back and after a short intro of sound bites, we plunge into the anthemic "Rise Again" - a chaotic, exultant, anthemic funk groove that sounds very contemporary and just screams "I'm back, so watcha gonna do about it?". This was the album highlight for me.
The remaining tracks vary widely in style, with most having some of the feel of one of Stewart's earlier albums. Strange Cargo could have fit in with the spaced-out dub of Learning to Cope with Cowardice, the funk groove of Secret Suburbia with the sparse electrofunk of Metatron, the staccato electronica of Freak Circus on Control Data, and so on.
But therein lies the problem stopping this from being a completely rewarding experience. Each of Stewart's previous albums involved an evolution in his sound, and a distinct feel to the album that made it a coherent listening experience. Even the more diverse Control Data had a definite progression through the album. The tracks on this album feel like they were recorded at separate times, with differing backing musicians, over a long period of time. (And that's probably the case - the publicity blurb states that it was "Created and recorded between London, Vienna, Bristol and Berlin..." and one track, Puppet Master, appeared on the earlier compliation Kiss the Future.) The album accordingly hops all over the place. Okay, maybe it's a bit silly to be criticising a Mark Stewart album for being a bit chaotic, but Stewart's chaos has always had an underlying order to it.
There is also less than you might expect - of the 11 tracks, at least one is previously released (Puppet Master), one is a disposable 15 seconds of audio grabs, and one is an instrumental version of another track on the album (Secret Suburbia/Secret Outro). And the whole package is only just over 41 minutes long. You'd think that, in 12 years, Stewart could have given us just a little more.
For my money, Loner and Almost Human drag a little and could have done with a bit more work, and they'll probably join the very select group of Stewart songs that I don't listen to.
A number of musicians lend support - the MAFFIA of Keith LeBlanc, Doug Wimbish and Skip McDonald make their presence felt on a couple of the groovier tracks, and former collaboraters like Crucial Tony and Simon Mundey pop their heads in, whilst the mighty Adrian Sherwood assists Stewart with production. Sherwood's "Becoming a Cliche" demonstrated (ironically?) that Sherwood can update his sound and bring us something new and different whilst still giving a nod to his past - it's a shame that the same sort of intelligent updating and maturing in sound couldn't have been demonstrated on this album.
Still, Stewart manages to whine, moan and issue agonised whines as per usual and it's good to see him still cranking it out...slowly."
Cute
A. Rodkin | Fremont, CA United States | 06/25/2008
(4 out of 5 stars)
"it is a good mark stewart album. stylistically it is somewhat of a mix between the mark stewart of old and the latest adrian sherwood albums.
I guess I am saying that it is cute due to the rebelliousness of the album - it is just as rebellious as the albums that he released 20+ yrs ago.
Unfortunately this is what seems to be happening to quite a few groundbreaking artists from the 80's nowadays - they come out with comeback albums and sometimes the impression I am left with is - yeah, it is ok, but the new stuff just doesn't add anything to what they have already done. Secret suburbia/Dream kitchen...whatever.
"
Track Listings (11) - Disc #1
