HEY MA - PLAYLOUDER REVIEW

Throughout the corridors and annexes of the modern library of pisspoor album covers, you'ff find isolated cases, locked away in filing cabinets with padlocks and a simple, six letter label stating 'Babies'. The cover of 'Hey Ma' takes a leaf from the 'Nevermind' school of baby-as-Banksy-eque-metaphor school of thought, which although preferable to the baby-wearing-headphones approach beloved by the likes of Papa Roach, is beyond hideous, and is probably the worst advert yet for why keeping the album as a physical entity alive is a good idea.

What is a good idea, mind, is buying a copy of the first James album in six years. Now I wasn't even aware they'd even split, or even that Tim Booth had released a solo album ('the hilariously titled 'Bone' How did I miss that Tim Booth had released an album called 'Bone'?) but apparently it was all a bit pointless being in James back in 2001, what with the war and all that, so they buggered off, and as well as making 'Bone', Booth nailed the double whammy of being a psychopath in 'Batman Begins' and mastering Judas in the Manchester Passion, whilst the others tried to write James song without him. Ridiculous. The problem with James is, has, and will almost always be, that 99% of the entire world have identical opinions on James. that is to say "I like Sit Down, but Tomorrow was better, Natalie Imbruglia DID rip off 'She's a Star', The two new tracks on the 1998 best of were shite, 'Laid' isn't as good as people say it is, regardless of it's use in American Pie: The Wedding, and anyone who can name more than 10 James songs without hesitating is a liar. They're the Bizarro World Crowded House; you think you know more songs than you do. However, and this has always been their guiding strength, they've barely put their name to a bad song in their epic twentysomething year old career, so here are another twelve songs that aren't bad.

The title track is a taste apparition of James past, although lyrically falls victim to the same historically innacurate belief that reformed indie stalwarts have any right to relay world politics to anyone who liked them for lines like "she only comes when she's on top" that's spreadling like disease in a fridge right now. As a political standpoint, it's about as revelatory as a doodle, but boasts a belter of a chorus that to be honest, nobody should even claim to do as well as James. Best of all, of course, is that it sounds a bit like Tomorrow, a bit like ' This is How it Feels' by the Inspiral Carpets and a lot like the best britpop throwback to emerge from the reformation rubble of the past three years. One sincerely doubts The Bluetones, Shed Seven or Crispin Hunts supposedly gargantuan comeback project could pull a rabbit out of their hat like this. Brilliant, it segues straight into 'Waterfall', which starts of sounding like a quartet of secondary school teachers covering 'Song Two', but drifts more into familiar James territory, or more appropriately, their other kind of song, which rather than the chiming anthem, offers a more whimsical tome based around a recurring wah-wah synth, and is about absolute bollocks. Apparently 'Waterfall' is about how Tim Booth went swimming on the set of Twin Peaks with Angelo Badalamenti when they were recording 'Booth and the Bad Angel'.

What makes 'Hey Ma' complete though, is that for the first time, James have served on a plate an unsurpassable collection of songs. Whether it's the time-lag causing us to forget that they were ever any good. Maybe it's because after decades of being forcefed 7/10 James songs, we'd all had enough. Maybe it's just because I don't want him to play Judas again. Whatever the excuse, but I'll swear by the sound of the Blue-Nile aping outro to 'Boom Boom' that it's the best they'll probably ever put their name to. Pisspoor baby or no pisspoor baby.