Yahoo! Music Album Review

Released on 15/05/06
Label: No Style Records

That record store scene in the film of Nick Hornby's "High Fidelity", where John Cusack declares the Beta Band's "3 EPs" to be an indisputable classic, must still haunt Steve Mason. Cusack's name check ("I will now sell five copies of '3 EP''s by the Beta Band", before playing a snatch from the "Loaded"-like coda to "Dry The Rain") was pretty much indicative of how the world and his wife once viewed Mason and his band. A decidedly more left-field proposition than Oasis, here was a group with potential to realise the whoozy Ecstasy-filled dream of The Stone Roses.

It didn't happen, of course. Due in no small part to the Beta's propensity for gratuitous self-sabotage. That eagerly awaited debut album (which swiped an excerpt from Bonnie Tyler's "Total Eclipse Of The Heart" on the opening track) was disowned by the band themselves, and their career never really recovered. Critics stayed loyal, but mainstream success proved almost entirely elusive. When the Beta's split last year they were apparently £1.2m in debt. Old magpie eyes Noel Gallagher had long since appropriated their shuffling folk trademark into his own songwriting, of which Oasis' 2000 Number One hit "Go Let It Out" was apparently the result.

Unfortunately, the career of King Biscuit Time - Mason's side project for the past five or six years - looks to be similarly troubled. Despite glowing reviews for the Tony Blair-baiting "CIAM15" single, a recent official website posting appeared to indicate his imminent retirement from the music business. A UK tour was pulled and the singer subsequently went AWOL. Rather than a new beginning, "Black Gold", it seems, could be King Biscuit Time's first and final call.

In such circumstances, this overwhelmingly melancholic and heartfelt album can make difficult listening. While traits of Mason's previous band are instantly recognisable (most obviously on the blend of chunky acoustic guitars, multi-tracked vocals and surreal wordplay that underpins "Kwangchow") at other points he mainlines into a vein of unbearable poignancy. Recorded at home alone, the casual listener is allowed total access to the jumbled chaos of his innermost thoughts and fears.

Certainly, tracks like "Izzum", "Impossible Ride" and "Paperhead" suggest the collision of a million ideas between Joy Division, Brian Eno and Augustus Pablo. Heavily drenched in melodica and subtly shifting guitar patterns, Mason delivers cryptic bittersweet lyrics over the top. "I know how to treat my neighbour," he sings at one point. "Box of chocolates, pepper flavour…" Disgust is never far from the surface, and amidst the restless invention and delicate melodies, the impression is of a man not at peace in the world - even if, as so often happens in these situation, it results in great art: "Loneliness, sadness, joyless, laughless", runs the chorus to "Left Eye", which, in another life, would be the best track on the new Shack album.

For us punters, it all adds up to a fantastic album and one that bears repeated listens. For Mason, the exercise has obviously been somewhat traumatic, and at times audibly so. But, hopefully a case of waving and not drowning, let's pray he returns to the fray soon, because "Black Gold" is a fine, fine record and undoubtedly the greatest thing he's ever done.

    by Adam Webb