Yahoo! Music Album Review

Released on 23/01/06
Label: Domino

Fey is a young man's game, and there comes a point in every sensitive musician's life when an acoustic guitar and sunny outlook just don't cut it anymore. No more Mr Nice Guy, then, from the hitherto uniquely charming Clearlake and their affable frontman Jason Pegg, a man who - in case you're unfamiliar - once sang so winningly about the joys of buying old jumpers at jumble sales with his girlfriend ("Jumblesaling") he almost single-handedly sparked a global knitwear shortage.

Debut album "Lido" (2000) should, by rights, have sparked a Henry Mancini revival, too, and after 2003 follow-up "Cedars", Clearlake should have been fêted as one of the country's A-list bands. They weren't - hence, presumably, the new tack. "Amber" bristles with tension and heaves with gloom. It sees tunes that once floated up and down like dandelion seeds, replaced with repetitive, mantra like riffs and driving rhythms; everyday narratives suffused with optimism and warmth switched for heavy doses of misanthropy and morbidity; and Pegg's earnest, wide-mouthed vocal shoved lower in the mix.

Yet their integrity remains: "Amber" wears its (excellent) influences on its chest, sounding remarkably like a 'reinterpretation' of Low's "Great Destroyer" from last year. Opening track "No Kind Of Life", in particular, is a stately throbber built largely around one repeated phrase, and one thickly distorted, buzzing note on guitar and bass. Plentiful repeat listenings of Queens Of The Stone Age, too, have lent that band's hard-edged but elegantly contoured style to big, butch, tattooed numbers like "Widescreen".

The most appealing songs to many, however, will be the ones where the old Clearlake pop up in their colourful knits and duffel coats to inject some easy melody and loved-up swagger. "Finally Free" is a pelvis-thrusting pop-and-roll stomper with a tambourine beat and a touch of The Kinks, while the Belle & Sebastian-ish "It's Getting Light Outside" is characterised by '60s-flavoured kick drum and jangly guitars. Even the least lovable tracks have shards of musical interest: "Neon"'s squealing harmonica gives it a bluesy tint (otherwise it sounds like Depeche Mode jamming with INXS) while the curious and experimental title track is constructed around the metallic sounds of clanking machinery, droning cellos and a music box.

Mostly, however, you're left feeling like you're outside a self-harm workshop looking in. Where is the love? "You Can't Have Me", with its silvery, echoey, Coldplayesque guitar, and the punchy "I Hate It That I Got What I Wanted" seem to encapsulate a new brittle, baleful approach, while plangent alt. countryish lament "Dreamt That You Died" and the comfortless "Widescreen" ("I'm the first to confess I get used to being unhappy") are just two of many Sylvia Plath moments. "Amber"'s glow increases with each listen, but existing fans have just cause to feel forsaken.

    by Anna Britten