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There are certain ramifications one must accept when opening your album with a nine-and-a-half minute prose poem set to music, the ultimate point of which is rooted in a jarring sex joke. Not to mention that this prose poem will be spoken by a man bearing little resemblance to your normal frontman whose voice is widely referred to as one of your band’s prime calling cards. A decision such as that should not be taken lightly.
Yet for Tindersticks, the elder statesmen of a Brit-pop scene they had always outgrown, the decision seems so natural it’s funnier than the song’s joke itself. “Chocolate,” the opener from the band’s latest album, The Something Rain, is exactly what’s outline above. In contrast to typical lead singer Stephen Staples’ ghostly baritone moan, the gloomy, frequently hilarious proceedings are narrated by David Boulter, whose crisp Ss and witty British affect lend levity to an album that can sometimes feel starved for it. No surprise, then, that “Chocolate” is a sequel to Tindersticks’ classic “My Sister,” from their eponymous first album. “Chocolate” is a perfect and damning opener, its unexpectedness and natural texture immediately arrests the listener. Yet the album drifts back toward more traditional recent Tindersticks fare, and the results are more disappointing because of “Chocolate”’s presence.
Of course, “traditional” Tindersticks material vastly undersells the objective refreshing individuality at play on all their records. The band’s willingness to maintain ties to their Brit-pop heritage, all the while spinning their instrumental gyroscope to wider radii is laudable in a way no other artist can match: Joanna Newsom, take notes. “This Fire of Autumn” is all frenetic bluster, Staples’ voice backed up ably by a duo of gospel singers while Tindersticks plant themselves firmly in the ground, eschewing the electronic tinges that add little to The Something Rain’s formula.
Sad, then, that The Something Rain can feel like Tindersticks autopilot. A saxophone or trumpet added by collaborator Terry Edwards here, a boat full of haunt to fill the recipe and stir with cymbals. “Chocolate” would sound this way were it an instrumental, and the banal elements of “Chocolate”’s story mirror ideal Something Rain listening conditions; gloomy loneliness, punctuated by infrequent moments of human interaction. If the record had maintained the lively literary twitch that its first track has in spades, this review might be very different.
For Tindersticks fans, The Something Rain could feel like a logical step forward. Not impossible to access, the record could serve as an entrance point for new listeners, if the diminishing returns after each successive song didn’t betray this accessibility. “Slippin’ Shoes” works the best of the bunch, mostly because it allows samba-style trumpet bleats to shine a little light on the proceedings. It also speaks volumes that all the best songs on The Something Rain contain precious little programming touches. Jazz melodies are well-worn, guitar lines don’t excite, and everything here is less relaxing than it should be. “Come Inside,” the meandering second-to-last track, doesn’t achieve its goal of being a palate clearing final movement; that honor is left up to the well edited “Goodbye Joe.”
Meticulously curated chamber pop, the kind Tindersticks have decided to trade on with the Something Rain, survives on an inherent literary bent and easy listenability. Other than a handful of tracks that maintain some brief levity, The Something Rain would only classify as easy listening for the gloom ridden. The literati can have their moment with the record, as “Chocolate” proves, but there’s precious little here to drawn in new blood.
Tindersticks – The Something Rain tracklist:
- “Chocolate”
- “Show Me Everything”
- “The Fire of Autumn”
- “A Night to Still”
- “Slippin’ Shoes”
- “Medicine”
- “Frozen”
- “Come Inside”
- “Goodbye Joe”
