Yahoo! Music Album Review

Released on 12/06/2000
Label:

The best soundtrack to an imaginary film so far this year. Yeah that may have become something of a cliche-ridden and largely debased genre these days, a catchall cop-out for the suffocatingly dull of mind but along with Barry Adamson, Northern Ireland's David Holmes still manages to make it sound fresh and legitimate. He's spoken himself of 'Bow Down to the Exit Sign' having the same kind of louchely debauched vibe as 'Performance' and seems keen to get the actual screenplay done and dusted. Whether it ever sees the light of day is intriguing but largely irrelevant. With this ramshackle spread of spiked beats and filthy-fingered funk he's produced easily his best work.

Celebrity collaborations score big publicity points of course and here we get the considered contributions of Bobby Gillespie, Jon Spencer and Martine Topley-Bird of Tricky's 'Maxinquaye' fame. Gillespie's turn on 'Sick City' is particularly inspired and lends further credence to the growing belief that the boy Bob is at last growing into a genuine rock star and not just the stick-insect sum of his influences. A hot fix of Iggy Pop jamming with Bobby Womack it's typical of the album as a whole. Sweet black soul fused with white-hot rock, urban street music as hot and dirty as the social milieu it documents.

As one long panoramic sweep it works with all the disturbed ease of a slightly skewed dream but broken down into individual tracks it loses none of its power. An intoxicating, headstorming brew of desire and despair 'Bow Down To The Exit Sign' is the first great album of the millennium. Stick this in your CD walkman and even that tube journey home from work will suddenly seem seedy and exotic.

    by Jackie Flynn