 |
| |
|
| |
Album Review
by SashaS
8-10-2003
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
| Finley Quaye offers much more than love |
|
Finley Quaye: 'Much More Than Much Love'
(Sony)
Finley Quaye: a fine ‘neo-urban’ disc
Finley Quaye has made an album that is surprisingly traditional in its approach; no, not conservative but very conventional inasmuch that explores genres while remaining near the songwriter’s idiom, for the best part of the material. (Or, it is less cutting-edge one thought it would be – Ed.) Still, ‘Much More Than Much Love’, his third album, is an assured comeback for a man who appears to like taking it easy a tad too much.
Winner of a Brit Award in 1998, Finley Quaye didn’t really capitalize on hit singles and fine debut album that ‘Maverick A Strike’ was. Instead, he spent half-dozen years as goss-columns’ fodder with his feud with Goldie, drug rehab and an affair with the late Paula Yates. All these on top of his mother dying of a heroin overdose when he was 11, resulting in Quaye spending childhood being shuttled back and forth between relatives in Manchester and Leith. He met his Ghanaian jazz musician father, Cab, only three yeas before his death in 1999.
Such a life of tragedy and yet – this album is not a downer, it’s the opposite of depressing. It shines with optimism, it glows with warmth, and it brims with joy! If albums should be coloured coded, then this is a – yellow! Well, perhaps nearer – orange due to being a rather mature offering. Starting with rock-inclined ‘Something To Say’ its main provenance appears to be softer rocking path until ‘Waiting For You’ opens its ballady arms with such passion that capitulation is inevitable.
‘Lovers Return’ is an unbelievable country song, a croon extraordinaire; ‘Dice’ finds him comfortable in the Madonna-style techno-pop (production help by William Orbit), ‘Face To Face’ is a World-cum-dub-cum-rock track, ‘Overriding Volunteer’ is a hybrid of reggae-rhythm and pop-rock melody with a catchy refrain, ‘Now and Forever’ is ‘lovers rocker’, ‘This Is How I Fell’ is a curio that combines dub, country and pop vocal for an infectious cut!
‘Pearls Of Wisdom’ booms and fires on all its reggae/dub cylinders while engaging all the muscles just as if by remote control; ‘Adorable’ is cyber-funker with ‘Overcome’ bringing the rear in a rocktastically epic manner.
‘Much More Than Much Love’ contains a very fine mix of styles that reveals its treasures with repeated listens. A fusion disc that may lead to ‘neo-urbanity’? Alas, the industry is structured differently and its targeting more focused on simple, obvious and easy-fan-identification.
8/10
SashaS
8-10-2003
Finley Quaye’s album ‘Much More Than Much Love’ is released 06 October 2003 by Sony
|
|
|
