JAMES : PLEASED TO MEET YOU  REVIEW

Listening to this CDR first time through, my immediate response was "What the hell have they done to these songs?". Six of the nine tracks on this CDR were previewed on last Autumn's tour and if Brian Eno's interview snippets were to be believed, the recording involved "where you can just sit at the desk and push the faders up in a straight line and it sounds f**king great", I was expecting a full-on in-your-face assault. However, that did not materialise.  Further listening soon put me straight on my first impression.

Space starts off with Tim singing over a sparse guitar backing into which the keyboards kick in slowly and build to about a minute fifteen when the song breaks into a chanted chorus. The song then follows a verse, chorus, verse pattern with some very clever intonation on Tim's voice. What comes across in this song, and across the nine tracks, is that Tim's lyrics have become far less specific than on previous albums. Words are used because they sound right and not to imply some deep meaning and Space benefits as a whole for this.

The intro to Falling Down sounds for all the world to Madonna's Material Girl.  That aside, this song is FUN, not in the sense of Afro Lover was fun -  it has a purpose, it has a subject, it has brilliant wordplay "Love's just something that always goes wrong, it looks and smokes like Eva Gardner" and "Baby's neptune into your moon, venus in your fur."  This really should have been the first single.

Back to more familiar ground for those who saw the band in the Autumn last year, the first single Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) follows and is not quite what you would have expected. If you remember the uptempo romp from the tour, this is different. The first two minutes have a relatively simple medium-paced backing track. The hook line doesn't lose its impact, but it is a relief when the louder, faster guitars kick in and the song takes on its familiar sound. It'll be interesting to hear it on the radio as this version is an unusual choice for a single.

The beauty of Give It Away is in its simplicity. Like Mother off the Seven, it is a cry for peace. The subject matter this time appears to be Northern Ireland. Mark's keyboard backing captures and Mike's vocal harmonies perfectly the sentiment of Tim's lyrics.

Coffee And Toast is the biggest surprise to me here. I thought it sounded rather weak after a couple of listens of the tapes of the Autumn shows.  Here, it kicks in more purposefully, there's much more to it than the keyboard swirl which presides over most of the song.  The lyrics don't seem to mean too much but work wonderfully well as the song isn't meant to be that serious.  James in 2001 are not the James of 1993. Mr Booth is a happy man and the bile and venom in some of the Laid tracks has gone and has been replaced by love, peace and harmony. If you don't get that, you won't get this album, and you probably didn't get Millionaires either.

Fine is the last of the three tracks that weren't played on the Autumn tour. It opens with upfront drums and keyboards. Tim's vocal is put through a processor which creates an interesting effect when combined with lyrics about vampire bats from Shanghai ordering Chinese takeaways. The chorus is a very simple one of Tim singing in a slight falsetto "Fine, fine, I feel fine" The song ends with Tim repeating the chorus over a set of wonderful sounding but virtually unintelligible backing vocals.

Gaudi opens with some wonderful vocal harmonies and the riff that made it a stand out track on the Autumn tour. It wouldn't sound out of place in an eighties disco. It remains faithful to the versions you may have heard on tapes of those shows. Some of the wonderful lyrical twists such as "You're so bland you could be in Neighbours. Under your bed are the skulls of strangers" have been replaced but Gaudi works as a three-minute pop song with its chorus refrain of "Let the sun begin to shine through your night"

If you heard and loved Junkie from the Shepherds Bush MTV performance, you won't be disappointed with the album version. It's perfectly paced to put across the darker side of the lyrics and the treatment on Tim's vocals and the interplay between Tim and Michael works superbly.

The standout track on the cdr is kept until the end. The Shining opens with a lovely keyboard line from Mark which is maintained through the song.  Throughout the song tiptoes along the line between epic and imploding under its own expanse.  The controversial line about Nazis and Jews has been replaced by a tribute to Kate.

So what marks these tracks from Pleased To Meet You out? Gone is the overbearing production of Millionaires, there is, pardon the pun, space for the instrumentation to be heard. There's no fighting to be heard, the edges are left on. The music is heard as it was played. There is some wonderful subtle intonation on Tim's vocals across the whole cd, no doubt down to Mr Eno. Mike's backing vocals and harmonies merely add to the effect.

It will be interesting to see which tracks are added to the album for release - there is an obvious place for tracks of the quality of Senorita, Stand Stand Stand and Work It Out. The cd as it stands doesn't feel complete and the order needs to be worked on.  But this is being a bit too picky.

Don't expect another Laid or Millionaires. Pleased To Meet You is the sound of a band that has decided to make a more impulsive record than the Millionaires saga but without the baggage that characterised the lyrics of Laid and Seven.  Prepare to love this record.