JAMES : PTMY AMAZON.CO.UK REVIEW

After nearly 20 years together, James at last seem to have created their definitive album in Pleased To Meet You. Linked by themes of addiction, unrequited love, growing-up and parenthood, the album is crammed full of new material that follows the style and formula of some of their greatest work from the last three decades. The songs on Pleased To Meet You were all played out for live audiences before the band entered the studio, making this a tried and tested album but without the predictable loss of creative autonomy. Booth's trademark lyrics are just as surreal and contemporary as ever--"Junkie" is a weird but sincere attack on capitalism's intensified grip on everyday life, ("Chocolate, Kisses, Pokémon, Hit em' while they're young"). The influence of album producer and long-term collaborator Brian Eno can also be heard on the eerie but ambient overture to album starter "Space". The 1980s-synth style "Gaudi" is a direct throwback to 1982, the year the band formed. This is a cumulative collection of all that's great about James.