If I were in Steve West's band I'd be pretty pissed off. The five of them go to all the trouble of playing the man's songs only for the record label to call this a solo album.
Ok, West wrote all the tunes and supplies all the vocals, but Marble Valley sounds to me like a band name and, make no mistake, the clunky garage punk-rockabilly with cheap synths is a group production.
Maybe the label, and perhaps even West himself, want to big up the fact that he used to be the drummer in Pavement and is a "sometime Silver Jews member". If so this isn't a great marketing ploy since this, their third album, pales in comparison with both bands.
The band certainly look glum posing on the back cover, a crappy snapshot of them taken in a cheap looking restaurant. None of them are smiling and each has a 'are you looking at me?' expression.
The photo is a fair indication of how the record sounds - tired and dispirited. Attempts to inject humour fall flat, not helped by West's morose delivery. His voice has vague echoes of the Magnetic Field's Stephen Merritt but lacks the same wit and wisdom.
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The premise of bumming a fag at the pearly gates on 'Fag & A Light' is a promising one but the joviality sounds forced as if the heart isn't in the joke. A whisky bottle at the gates of hell ('Whisky') doesn't lighten the mood any either.
Booze and smokes are recurring themes in songs which sound like they are putting a brave face to moments of quiet desperation.
The break up song, I Could Drink An Ocean, seems to be trying to squeeze levity out of an acrimonious separation.
The album was originally released in 2006, and re-released now on the eve of a new record by the band. I wish the North England distributors luck because personally I can't really think who the UK target market might be.
13 t - 38.25m
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