Sentimental Longing. Teardrops and Heartache. Beautiful
06/14/2003
(5 out of 5 stars)
"A review from othermusic.comI can't quite pin down why I find the new record by sometime Pulp guitarist Richard Hawley so utterly compelling. But I've narrowed it down to a short list, and competing for the top spots are the following: teenage anglophilia resulting in a lifelong dedication to the Smiths; a vaguely unhealthy predilection towards British films of the fifties and sixties; and perhaps, most likely, Hawley's beautiful voice and prodigious talent for creating spare, seductive pop songs. Hawley's velvety croon, somewhere between Roy Orbison and Ricky Nelson by way of Scott Walker, meanders through an album filled with echoey fables of lost love, tough good-byes and rolling fog. You can almost see Tom Courtenay watching Julie Christy leave him on the midnight train, or disillusioned teddy boys kicking a can outside of a suburban dance hall. Departing from the blazing crescendos of his recent guitar work on Pulp's "We Love Life", Hawley instead constrains his palate. Chimes, bells, and shuffling drums support a reverb-drenched vocabulary of staccato melodies, jangly dancehall lullabies, and steel guitar moans. Talk about exit music for a film, with their melancholy narratives and eerie atmospheres, Hawley's songs could just as easily be soundtracks to the films of David Lynch (think "Blue Velvet") or even Kenneth Anger. Hawley is more sincere than fellow Brit-Popers (like Blur and Oasis) who digress into their own Britishness. The songs on "Late Night Final" emit a sparklingly evocative Anglo sensibility mixed with obvious reverence for American music of the fifties and sixties, all the while conjuring up a completely original album worthy of re- igniting various and sundry unhealthy obsessions. [MC]"
This is 6stars!
Mur29 | Finland | 04/05/2006
(5 out of 5 stars)
"I think it isn't possible to make better this kind of pop-record.
Brilliant melodies, fine guitars etc., warm voice."