Time does indeed change everything. Once upon a time, John Squire was feted as the greatest guitarist of his generation, thanks to his incandescent playing with The Stone Roses. Then he went and added blues-rock by numbers to such lyrical doggerel as "Strap-on Sally chased us down the alley/We feared for our behinds".
Today, Squire's decided he doesn't need to hide in a band and has brought in session musicians to flesh out his songs rather than build a band around them. This is his album with his name on it. And it's his voice, exposed for the first time over the course of the ten tracks. Comparisons have been made to Dylan and Lennon, but Squire's singing has more in common with his contemporaries like Mike Scott and Miles Hunt, with a world-weary, slightly nasal inflection. Which fits in fine with a set of songs dealing with the events and characters of his past.
He still fires the occasional lyrical blank and his guitar playing has less of the sparks of the past, instead settling into a role complementing the songs rather than dominating them. Rock School this ain't. The songs themselves are mostly mid-paced guitar rock. 'I Miss You' recalls late-70s Dylan with its marriage of acoustic and electric guitars and keyboards, allied to a gentle chorus. 'Shine A Little Light' is an acoustic campfire strum, while the title track weaves drug imagery amongst haunting guitar lines. '15 Days' sets The Stone Roses' legacy (They come down from the North in their waterproof clothes) to a gospel-tinged ballad, but 'Transatlantic Near Death Experience' is a Dylan pastiche that never hits the heights.
Arguably the two most successful tracks are 'All I Really Want' which sounds like it came from the same sessions as Dylan's 'Oh Mercy' album, while 'Strange Feeling' begins like a classic Stones track from the early 70s and finds guitar and sax spiralling to a powerful crescendo. Both work because they pay lip service to the past without slipping into parody.
Those looking for the beat-driven fireworks of the early Stone Roses will find 'Time Changes Everything' an immense disappointment. But then Squire has already nailed his colours to the classic rock mast with 'The Second Coming' and The Seahorses. This album sounds exactly like a guitarist's solo album should, which is no bad thing but offers no great thrills either. It's intimate music from a man whose past will always overshadow his present.
