Yahoo! Music Album Review

Released on 12/05/08
Label: Cooking Vinyl

Like those other indie perennials Ocean Colour Scene (who are, amazingly, only two albums shy of The Charlatans' total of 10), to most a new record from Tim Burgess and co is greeted with "Are they still going?" incredulity. But where OCS are content to plough the same furrow, their counterparts always aim to prove their imagination matches the extent of their record collection. They've done rock, baggy, country and, when those keyboard tones come in on opener "Oh! Vanity", like a vintage Blues Brothers' stage-intro, it seems The Charlatans are back to soul-bothering mode.

But it's a wrong-footing, as "You Cross My Path" gets progressively more electro, building upon the synth-pop swathes of "Bad Days" until "The Misbegotten" becomes a Haçienda throwback complete with "Blue Monday"-poaching bass line. So, The Charlatans have cottoned on to the electro-is-back wave, but not in a cool, Spank Rock or New Young Pony Club sense, but a magpie parody, a homage. In its own way, "You Cross My Path" is every bit as retro as "Riot City Blues", the return to Stones-rock misstep from those other genre-shifters Primal Scream.

But without revisiting the '80s with wit and style, as Neon Neon did on "Stainless Steel", "The Misbegotten" explains, "And then I found two girls in matching bathing suits", culminating in an offer to dye one of their roots. Burgess just isn't sexy and The Charlatans are stranded a long way from Neon's "Sweat Shop", a masterpiece in modern electro-baiting shagathons. Admittedly, there are moments when, musically, "You Cross My Path" threatens to reach the heights of the soaring templates it covets.

However, a heavy-handed producer pushes Burgess' vocals way back in a muddy mix (perhaps because his reedy pipes aren't anthemic enough to get anyone out of bed; "Everything depends on the drugs" he tells us in "A Day For Letting Go" - yes, has someone been at the temazepan?), and does the same with the duelling lasers that would have threatened to cram the dancefloors on both "The Misbegotten" and the title track. Even the group themselves get lost on "Bad Days", where a brief flash of a mariachi breakdown is quickly truncated, as if stepping outside on just one song was too risky a proposition.

"I'll take a bow with one reprise", Burgess tells us on closer "This Is The End", oblivious to the fact that "You Cross My Path" became an encore in the true sense of the word six tracks ago. There's nothing wrong with paying respect to past loves, but it's not enough to be Manchester's indie survivors simply replicating "Madchester" club sounds. When revivalists Kasabian are already doing that, it's hard to see this crossing the path of anyone outside of the devoted.

    by Jason Draper