Alison Moyet
Hometime

Distributed by
Sanctuary

• Year: 2002
• Rating: 7/10
• Cat. No: SANCD128

Track listing:

1. Yesterday's Flame
2. Should I Feel That It's Over
3. More
4. Hometime
5. Mary, Don't Keep Me Waiting
6. Say It
7. Ski
8. If You Don't Come Back To Me
9. The Train I Ride
10. You Don't Have To Go

She's back. At last. Some eight years on from her last studio album Essex, Alison Moyet returns free from the shackles of Sony Music and ready to compete in a much-changed music scene. Britpop has come and gone, and a new breed of identikit totstars and wannabes have hijacked the charts, in the years since Moyet last graced us with her presence. Yet what a presence it is that we've been denied all this time.

After a dream start, the relationship between singer and the then-CBS (later Columbia) Records was always on a collision course of art vs. commerce, as the company became merely a branch of the electronics giant Sony and shifting units took precedence over the creative needs of its prize assets such as Moyet and George Michael. Indeed, while much ado was made of Michael's fallout with the label, and his legal accusations centered on "restriction of trade", Alison Moyet has been the one to suffer the most stifling experience.

The ex-Wham! man moved on after a year or so, to new deals and further albums with greater control, while the former Yazoo frontwoman has endured a musical wilderness created by the impasse that followed Essex's lukewarm reception and minimal success.

Hometime was originally offered to Columbia, but rejected out of hand, leaving Moyet with no option but to cut her ties with an unsympathetic employer (and somehow extricate herself from a crippling contract) or face more years in the cold. Thankfully, at some cost, the deed was done and Moyet took the album elsewhere.

So, was it worth it? To her, most certainly. Always the most engaging and candid of performers, unconcerned with projecting an idealised and plainly false persona, she is a rare beacon of honesty in an increasingly delusional industry. Back in 1991, she was brave enough to abandon the slick, highly successful AOR which had made her the most popular female artist of the mid-to-late 1980s, in order to be true to herself. Insincerity sits uneasily with Alison Moyet, and accomplished though Alf (1984) and Raindancing (1987) were, filled with quality compositions but characterised by an undemanding glossy production, she couldn't carry on in that vein without losing her sanity, eager though her label were for more of the same gigantic sales figures.

Hometime is very much in the mould of both 1991's Hoodoo and Essex, an eclectic and personal piece of work. At its best, as on the starkly engrossing gothic folk of Mary Don't Keep Me Waiting or sensuous closer You Don't Have To Go, the album is a fabulous reminder of Moyet's distinctive and distinguished vocals. In fact, she is in fine voice throughout, but - just as was the case on Hoodoo and Essex - the largely self-penned material doesn't always do her talents justice.

Unremarkable workouts like Ski and Say It are surprisingly bland given her uncompromising, lucid personality, and there's barely a tune between them. Yesterday's Flame is an uneven but spirited opener, full of nuance and drama but crucially coming undone thanks to the messy arrangement and unflattering production. Should I Feel That It's Over, the song which follows, is a triumph however, striking exactly the right balance in its guitars and strings approach.

A few of the more contemporary-sounding efforts (More, Hometime, The Train I Ride) place Moyet in a Portishead/Morcheeba setting with luxuriant, if hardly arresting, results. Her voice perfectly suits the mellow, moody triphop-lite soundscapes, yet this is 2002 and somehow it all feels too familiar. More, alone, gets up a head of steam with its agitated sexual undercurrent.

Ultimately, it's *that* voice which drags the less inspired moments on Hometime to a higher level, turning the servicable into the memorable, the good into the outstanding. There are tracks here which demand attention, refreshing in their unaffected intensityand genuine class, a world away from the histrionics of today's bleating nobodies so desperate for the shallow fame that wiser and more gifted performers such as Alison Moyet have long shied away from.

She's back. Hopefully to stay this time.

Review copyright © Liam Carey, 2002.