Artist: Jarvis Cocker
Album: Further Complications
Somewhat strangely, people were shocked — shocked! — that Jarvis Cocker released a rockin' album recorded by Steve Albini. I mean, he is a famous rock musician and all, not an Elizabethan balladeer, or just some witty bon vivant. Perhaps Albini's name set people off, like suddenly they were expecting this to come out sounding like a Jesus Lizard album or something. But Albini is, to his credit, pretty flexible, more interested in getting music made in a fuss-free and direct manner. So while we do have a set of rockers here, it's not extraordinarily far removed from what we might have expected.
The stripped-down musical approach does correspond with stripped-down lyrics. But that doesn't necessarily mean equal dumbed-down: "I never said I was deep / but I am profoundly shallow," as our man admits. Which means for every song that seems a little obvious (like "Caucasian Blues") there's usually something a bit more clever, such as "Leftovers", which finds our hero picking up girls at the paleontology museum ("If you want to study dinosaurs / I know a specimen whose interest is undoubted"). Everything here isn't a gem — "Homewrecker" sounds pretty generic, part of an unfocused mid-album sag. But generally the album's brio and élan carry it through.
It ends on a bit of a left turn with "You're In My Eyes", an extended disco meditation on memory and loss that sends the listener off with a slightly piquant jab to the chest, which, despite all the cleverness and irony it's often cloaked in, is something that Jarvis Cocker is one of the best at.
Track Picks: 4 - "Leftovers"
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