JAMES : PLEASED TO MEET YOU - ONE OF THE THREE'S REVIEW

Pleased To Meet You is a critical album for James.  The last album was Millionaires was met with a mixed response, from lavish praise to a shrug of the shoulders and accusations of over production and "it'll never be the same without Larry".  Sales were good, but not spectacular given the renaissance provided by the Best Of.

The signs were promising for this record.  Firstly Brian Eno is back at the helm and he has spoken of a more direct recording style which should suit James. Secondly, and miraclously, the album has been delivered on time and finally, thirteen tracks had been previewed during the October 2000 tour and most had been well received by the fans.

The album opens with Space and an elongated eerie opening with Tim employing a falsetto for the first of many times in the album before the song erupts into a chanted chorus urging the listening to "get over yourself, get out of the frame". A fine start to the album, almost a call to arms in the same way Crash was for Millionaires.

Falling Down is the most obvious "pop" track on the album with an uncanny resemblance in parts to Madonna's Material Girl.  As is tradition with James, this is tempered by Tim's wordplay, the highlight here being "love's just something that always goes wrong, it looks and smokes like Eva Gardner" which I think only he would be capable of writing and fitting into what is an obvious choice for a future single.

The first of the tracks previewed on the Autumn tour, English Beefcake, has undergone a radical overhaul since then with a brand new chorus.  The first half of the song features Tim quarter singing, three quarters speaking about wishing to become a machine to avoid facing up to his emotions. Half way through, the song stops and then goes into a chanted mantra of "There's nothing to say, I get in the way, unable to break obsession" as the music builds up and up into a crescendo. Powerful and emotive stuff.

If you heard and loved Junkie from the Shepherds Bush MTV performance, you won't be disappointed with it here as it remains very faithful to that 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.  Dave's drumming and some clever overdubbing add to the powerful threatening undercurrent running through the song.

Pleased To Meet You is for me the weakest track on the album.  It begins very promisingly, a quiet almost lilting lament to a boy "out of touch with his feelings" before the middle section which seems very plodding and which doesn't appear to go anywhere before the guitars kick in for the ending with Tim repeating the chorus over and over.

One of the standout tracks on the album is the mysteriously titled The Shining which opens with a lovely keyboard line from Mark which is maintained through the song and keeps it on the right side of the line between epic and overblown  The controversial line about Nazis and Jews has been replaced by a pointed tribute to Tim's fiancee Kate.

Senorita was one of the fan's favourites on the tour and here just fails to recapture the power with which it came across during the October tour and has some awkward moments lyrically. The subject matter of the song is again obsession, a theme running through many of the tracks on the album.

Gaudi opens with some wonderful vocal harmonies and the riff that made it a stand out track on the Autumn tour. It also wouldn't sound out of place in an eighties disco as it possibly the most uptempo track on the album and it clocks in at about three minutes. It remains faithful to the version you may have heard in October. 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 extremely well as a three-minute pop song with its chorus refrain of "Let the sun begin to shine through your night"

For me, What Is It Good For?, which opened every show on the October tour was the standout track of the thirteen songs that were previewed, and it does not fail to deliver here.  It's a very simple song, but as with many James highlights over the years, it is that fact that gives it power and emotion.

Give It Away is another very simple song in its conception and is similar to Mother off the Seven in that it is a cry for peace. The subject matter this time appears to be Northern Ireland. Mark's keyboard backing  and Mike's vocal harmonies capture perfectly the simple sentiment of Tim's lyrics.

Fine is another track that wasn'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 bizarre sounding 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.

On 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 may not be quite what you had been expecting.  It has been slowed down from the versions played on the tour and does take a couple of listens to get into, but is definitely a grower.

As with several other James albums (Stutter, Strip Mine, Gold Mother, Whiplash), James have saved one of the best tracks for last.  The opening instrumental minute of Alaskan Pipeline appears to be loosely based around the Laid track One Of The Three.  There's not a lot to the song itself, but it is this sparseness and the simplicity in Tim's vocals that make the song special. Definitely a highlight of the album, if not the best track.

The overall verdict on the album has to be a positive one. Whilst there is the suggestion that James have missed an opportunity by leaving off three songs - Coffee And Toast, Stand Stand Stand and Scratchcard - that were cited as many as potential singles, Pleased To Meet You is a record that is gelled together by a common mood, in the same way that Laid was in comparison to the more disparate nature of Gold Mother or Whiplash. On that basis the album is a success. 

Whether it will be a commercial success or not is an entirely different matter.  There has always been a complexity to James music that, with the exception of Sit Down, has marked it out from that of other bands. Whereas the likes of Coldplay and Travis thrive on producing simple but emotive pop songs that people can sing along to, there's more depth to James and that forms a barrier to even greater acceptance and recognition because the average record buyer doesn't look for that depth.  Pleased To Meet You doesn't cross that barrier and so, whilst it will sell well, it won't sell millions.