How we all love a bit of Dave Fridmann, eh? Not content with his input into the Flaming Lips and Mercury Rev, we fusty little arbiters of everything a little surreal and a little bit crazy slaver for the even the flimsiest of connections elsewhere. And there’s little more flimsy than Fridmann’s twiddling the dials at mixdown on Home’s new album, ‘No.15’. After wallowing in the endless production possibilities afforded by recording “XIV“ with David Fridmann at Tarbox Road Studios Home return to a distinctly more vintage recording approach with New York producer, Kevin McMahon at Home’s own Devil’s Isle WetLab Studio. The result? A not surprisingly crazy hotchpotch of fuzzy guitars, glam posturing and faintly disharmonious self-indulgence. The sound is live, cloth-eared and primal. Take that as a positive or a negative, it’s your choice – but Bowie, Roxy and Bolan did all this kind of thing with more swaggering panache and sophistication thirty odd years ago. ‘River Of Gold’ is hooky enough, steeped in a dense peculiar wit and as eager to please as bedful of French Maids and ‘I Don’t Want To Know’ pleases also – but the crashing guitar intros, the plodding ivories and the trash-can drums slowly begin to grate with ‘Sneak Out!’ perhaps the only chink of light coming in through the blinds of the band’s much laboured absurdity. There are plenty ideas here – but too little interest in having them realised.
If you’re looking for a little upbeat, crazy-as-a-fox, glam inspired slice of pop nonsense then check out Supergrass’ infinitely superior ‘I Should Coco’. It’s like this, only better.