Elly Roberts reviews
Richard Ashcroft: Keys To The World
Distributed by
FDM Records
- Cat.no: FDMNIZ002
- Released: January 2006
- Rating: 6/10
Shaking off past glories and believing recent self-hype have become a major problem for Richard Ashcroft.;
Since leaving his role as leader of Manchester
outfit The Verve, Ashcroft has tried to establish himself as a bona fide
solo artist. It's been a rocky ride. During the past five years, he's had
reasonable singles success, a number one and number three album in the UK
charts.
Keys To The World's ten songs once again comes with varying degrees
of success. For some inexplicable reason he just falls short of hitting the
bullseye. Undoubtedly the album's taster single, Break The Night With
Colour, is quite magnificent and will become a concert anthem, though after
two weeks in the chart (w/c 23rd Jan) it dropped from 3 to 9. On the evidence
of the single, it will arouse curiosity from die-hard fans and beyond, but I
fear that's where it will all end, with the album plummeting quite quickly.
So what's on offer with the remaining nine songs?
Over the years, Ashcroft has had a propensity for doom and gloom.
It comes as no surprise that the over all feel is tinged with whinge.
Opening with a rockier edge than usual, rip-roaring Why Not Nothing soon
melts away, into familiar mellow territory - Music Is Power, full of lush
strings and sublime wiry guitar ghosting in the background as he firmly
believes the lyrical intention. Plaintive 'Words' is a classy rambler which
contains some impressive male backing vocals, segued by even more impressive
chick backups on 'Keys', not quite turning into the epic is should have
been. It lacks that killer punch.
Wailing guitars feature heavily on Wait Til The Morning, however,
it lays to bed Chris Martin's claim Ashcroft being
"the greatest singer in the world". Sweet Brother Malcolm is totally
destroyed by undisciplined singing: yet another golden opportunity missed.
Just saving the song are some wonderfully understated melodies.
Gentle guitar and piano musings, and a bad vocal, turn Why Do Lovers into an
anti-climax, which is a shame: this could have been the album's high point.
Bringing it to a close, we're given sweeping strings, a regular beat and
impassioned vocals, rounding off a solid album.
It's not a classic. One day Ashcroft might pull it off.
Right now, he doesn't have the keys to the world domination he might
aspire to.
The full list of tracks included are :
DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TXW32R4 32" widescreen TV
connected to either a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM player or Microsoft Xbox and
played through a Sony STR-DB930 amplifier.
Review & concert pics copyright © Elly Roberts, 2004-2008.
