JAMES : PLEASED TO MEET YOU REVIEW - Q

Following 1997's platinum shifting Best Of with the sprightly worlly pop of 99's Millionaires, James day in the sun looked set to last the week. Then no one bought Millionaires and they're back in make-or-break territory, back with producer Brian Eno and back with their most overblown record since 1989's Gold Mother. It is their weakness. Singer / lyricist Tim Booth's default setting is Pretentious (this album's first couplet is "Break my shape - in light I trust, none exist, save space and dust) and James cure for ill-defined songs has often been to throw more ambience at them.

Pleased To Meet You (what a mimsy title) has forgotten that lesson. Its best things are the exultant Falling Down (Simple Minds doing Madonna's Ray of Light) and Fine (curious, disciplined pop) and there's a tentative pop at the dancefloor (Space is trancey and Gaudi almost proper disco). But the majority is chugging, undynamic and noodlesome, seemingly conceived as grooves rather than songs, with Booth rifling through an encyclopedia of vocal tics and FX (Tonight, Matthew, I'm going to be Beth Gibbons) to deliver an almost self-parodying splunge of limp-wristed anti-materialism. Time for a brutal rethink.

2/5