HEY MA - REAL BUZZ REVIEW

It’s quite common for bands to suffer from a single big hit eclipsing the rest of their work, and Manchester’s James have their own experience of this. 1991’s re-release of ‘Sit Down’ has graced the speakers of indie discos across the land ever since, appealing to floppy haired kids in skinny jeans and rugby boys alike, but it’s only a tiny piece of the James puzzle.

Hey Ma is the band’s tenth studio album since 1986 debut Stutter, with five compilations and two live recordings supplementing the James canon. The first release since a five year hiatus, Hey Ma will doubtless be hailed as musical genius by the band’s famously loyal fans, but what should the rest of us expect?

Vocalist Tim Booth is in fine form throughout the album, his rich, confident tone travelling between soft languor and enthusiastic urgency, expertly backed up by Jim Glennie (bass), Larry Gott (guitar), David Baynton-Power (drums), Saul Davies (guitar, violin), Mark Hunter (keyboards) and Andy Diagram (trumpet). An air of authority permeates Hey Ma; a wisdom that comes only with age and experience.  Poetic turns of phrase and barbed comments on the world and its ways are dressed up in layers of acoustic guitar thrum with grand flourishes of piano and lead guitar lines.  

Title track ‘Hey Ma’ could be easily dismissed as just another jaunty indie pop song without closer inspection, but its jolliness is deceptive. The lyrics are the finest on the album, wondering about the consequences of war generally and 9/11 specifically (“the towers have fallen”) and peaking with the chilling “Hey Ma, the boy’s in body bags / Coming home in pieces” chorus.  ‘Oh My Heart’ is a seize the day song with some more tasty lyrical snippets like “I don’t own anything / Just this life living me”, and topped off with swirls of urgent electric guitar and plaintive backing vocals.

‘Semaphore’ is an end-of-love song, opening with a melancholy guitar line and building up with strings and dots of keyboard sounds to beautiful effect. ‘Upside’ is grandiose but sobering at the same time, ostensibly written from the perspective of immigrant labourers working to send money home but drawing parallels with some of the band members’ new found roles of father and provider for their families. ‘72’ is another war song and the most interesting track on the album musically, employing broken-up synths, a funky bassline and submerged effected vocals to dreamy effect. The lyrics hit home with devastating accuracy: “My God’s bigger than your God”, “There’s a universe at stake / We get in the way”.

Some really crass lyrical moments break the spell now and then, most notably in the Wilco-esque ‘Waterfall’. The winceworthy “Don’t take a phone company to tell you life’s pay as you go / I wonder how much of life is set up in utero” is an unsightly blip in an otherwise pleasant song, though the possible Nirvana reference (Cobain & Co supported James in 1991 just prior to the release of Nevermind) lets them off a little. ‘Whiteboy’ is an unnecessary addition to the album, seemingly an attempt at harking back to the mid 90’s trend of being sardonically humorous over a boring, repetitive backing track falling flat. But hey, who’s perfect?

After more than twenty years in the musicmaking business James have come up with an enjoyable grower of an album in Hey Ma - put 'Sit Down' to one side and give it a try.