This is not the finest album The Charlatans have produced in their 21 year career. It’s not even in the top five. But it does tick many of the same boxes as their best work.
The Madchester survivors still use a hammond organ better than anyone (just as they did in 1990 on Some Friendly). They’ve still got that languid stoner groove (as they did on 1994’s Up To Our Hips). And they’re still one of the few white boy indie groups who ooze funk out of every pore (as on 2001’s Wonderland).
But two things let them down on Who We Touch. The first is the finely polished production from Youth. The band asked him to make the record sound like a European winter. What they had in mind was “fresh and crisp” but, on many tracks, what they got was “cold and wet”. The worst example of this is ‘My Foolish Pride’ - the most sterile track the band has ever committed to tape.
The second area that lets the record down is the lyrics from Tim Burgess. At times you wonder if he’s just swallowed a rhyming dictionary. ‘Sincerity’ is a prime example: “I find atrocity in your monotony” (Really Tim? Seriously?) and in the tautological chorus: “The honesty of your sincerity”.
This patchy album does include some cracking tunes (the chest thumping anthem ‘Trust in Desire’, the six minute psychedelic opus ‘Oh’ and the tender, dreamlike ‘You Can Swim’) but we’ve come to expect more from The Charlatans over the years.
Article by Andy McLean. Copyright held by author.
First published in The Brag, Sydney, October 2010.
Who We Touch is available through Shock Records.
Who We Touch is available through Shock Records.
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