SEVEN REVIEWS

Kick Out The James by Andrew Collins, NME 15.2.92 5/10

ITS THAT time again when they lose their friends. ..James are back to save the world from industrial greys and urban blues, darlings of the supertax indie bracket, a dash of sensitivity in an all-lad environment. Their fourth album (proper) arrives, packaged in more soppy childbirth imagery, larger than life and twice as complex, and, having generated the kind of merchandise-crazy following to put them at the top of the charts and in the middle of the Mojave Desert, it looks more than likely that James' sheer size is about to sink them.

'Seven' is all about filling the available space. And, in 1992, James have all the wide open space they want. Which is why the current single 'Born Of Frustration' has us all on edge with its shameless Simple Minds chorus - have James suddenly grown too big for their Booth?

Beginning with that primal Astbury-esque yelp- Tiny Tim throwing off the topcoat of restraint very early on indeed - the opening line, "All this frustration / I can't meet all my desires". is our first clue as to his latest state of mind. Meanwhile, Andy Diagram's trumpet squawks like a strangled dolphin and over-contributes to the sound of seven men busting a gut, frankly. Yet we forgive them this excursion into pomp-dom because they are James.

After all that fuss and nonsense, 'Ring The Bells' is a confused old James fan's reward. It's back to the village for a more organic update of 'What For', poetic, rural, minimal, breaking into epic mode only for the chorus and inevitable finale. James are still capable of playing it close to the chest, they just can't stop themselves from beating it when the Indie Police aren't looking.

Big is not necessarily bad. The sound of one man clapping may be quaint and ideologically affordable, but even Carter invested in some big lights when they moved into the superleague. The built-up healing powers of 'Ring The Bells', for instance, are immense. Indeed, the whole of Side One will carry you aloft like a hero. 'Sound' - a much less-likely hit single than Daisy Chainsaw, thank you very much -is a real fanfare for the common man, Diagram's splendid recurring reveille blowing the dumb Simple Minds comparisons out of the water. The album version even mutates into a curious electronic passage, eerie enough to soundtrack a John Carpenter movie. Jim Kerr, eat my shorts.

'Bring A Gun' is frenetic psychopop on which Tim snarls into the earhole. It's an end of the world Big Rave, a three-minute trumpet armageddon. Perhaps it's only drawback is that every song on Seven is a three-minute trumpet armageddon.

'Mother' follows on, thematically, with Wild West guitar and a windy, funereal air. It isa requiem for the Gulf's not-all-walking wounded - Booth appears to have been usefully affected by 'that' mini-apocalypse: 'This war's a motherf-cker' is nothing if not a shocking first line. Fundamentally a slowie, 'Mother' is still on a collision course with the crescendo train.

 'Don't Wait That Long' (which closes Side One) is a lyrical red herring, since it was wrItten during the 'Gold Mother' sessions, the giveaway being the boring New Man guilt trip - "God made me to her own design / Bad planning / Too many flaws". The arrangement itself is a sophisticated Merchant/Ivory epic, it pulses, it flows, it circulates; alas, the all-important 'song' bit eventually drowns in its own fluidity.

Welcome to the problem (James have always been a problem band). 'Seven' contains 11 musical soundscapes (ten, on vinyl), all fit for widescreen promo treatment. No crime there, only indie birdwatchers and visionary economist E F Schumaker will be upset by this. However, while the individual interesting noise-count is consistently high, tunes are tragically thin on the ground. Melody seems incidental to broad, sweeping effect. Plus Tim will not shut up, he finds a way of humming or whistling through every part of every song.

Side Two - which, due to bad planning, is burdened with all the Poly-filler is a king-size letdown. 'Learn To Live A Love Of Life' nicks its verse off 'Stepping Stone' and chukka-chukka guitar intro off The Edge. And quite frankly, I've heard enough throttled Disney trumpet at this point. Someone get that thing off him, for God's sake!

'Next Lover' is rhythmic, rambling, kinda hypnotic for a time but ultimately forgettable. 'Heavens' perks up a bit, being uptempo and laced with a very clearly recorded vocal, but 'Protect Me' gives you the distinct impression that all seven of James are on wages, that they're merely fulfilling the accepted album-length brief- no different to Level 42 or Genesis, really. More melancholy chords changes, more interacting layers of clever sound, more whooping, diving vocals. Amazingly, more bloody trumpet.

To dredge up a lyric from the spellbinding 'Top Of The World' on 'Gold Mother'- "The view from here's breathtaking / But it's cold and lonely in this stratosphere". James evidently need to split up, reform as a four-piece, get dropped by Phonogram and embark on a mid-capacity tour if their fifth album is to be as pristine and perfectly rounded as 'Gold Mother'. They are flirting with the Big Music, insufficiently-endowed to follow through. They've got the bends from not enough pressure, in effect, and I, for one, am gutted. 

Q Magazine 6.91 by Phil Sutcliffe 2.92      

A year ago, with Gulf War self-censorship at fever pitch, the Phonogram board would have needed sedation after the opening lines from Mother: These wars are motherfuckers/How many sons will we kill today?. Now, panic over, James wordsmith Tim Booth is free to expound all his obsessions: war, the Mother figure, God and sex. On the other hand it's quite a challenge to the instrumental end of the seven-piece to infuse these heavy thoughts with pop allure and there are no bathroom anthems like Sit Down               this time.

Cranking up the big music of Gold Mother (1990) one larger, James deliver with the technical range to be expected from Madchester's veterans (born 1983) and while Larry Gott masterfully flicks the card index of guitar styles, they vary the pace from the near-punk chorus of Ring The Bells to the meditational drone of Next Lover (which doesn't appear on the vinyl version).

But even with clangorous production from Youth, Steve Chase and the band, the aggregate is the pill without the sugar-coating-except for those who can swallow Tim Booth's unbridled intensity.

The first track, Born Of Frustration, plunges straight into his inner armageddon. Sinful desire knots his breast. He hollers, I don't need a shrink, but an exorcist. Dragging the deity into his priapic problems, he cries All this frustration!/Who gave the leopard spots and taught the birds to sing?. To which he has no consistent answer: for example, in Ring The Bells he laments I no longer feel God watching over me, while in the title track he claims, God made love to me - which ought to be worth an excommunication if not a fatwa.

But then who wants the certainties of a sermon? Tim Booth turns ideas into songs because he's clear about one thing, that confusion is the stuff of drama. The cerebro-emotional uproar all spills into one melting pot on Don't Wait That Long, as  he sets off into celestial controversy with God made me to Her own design/Bad planning, toomany flaws, then owns up to more pressing groin-level agonies: Heart/Beats faster, hits harder than a boxer/Whenever we are apart/Body language is an SOS/I don't understand how a fight starts/Not enough to believe in love. It's a passionate performance of hard, carefully developed writing - and very  impressive.

 James were part of something, but now they've become one-offs. Intriguing, difficult, joli laid, unhinged at the fringes. In part, they have overreached their ability to put sounds and tunes to their teeming ideas, but at least if you want a band with balls, they got 'em.

The Chicago Tribune 3.92

Since the early 1980s, James has weaved a folkish rock, steering clear of the fashionable musical movements of the band's native Manchester, England. Since the seven-man troupe (hence the LP title) has managed to eschew the neopsychedelic '60s revival and the more pervasive electronic pop of New Order, it's somewhat disappointing that it should pull off a soulless imitation of U2 in its current outing. Fans of U2 will find comfort in James singer Tim Booth's rendering of Bono's wailing in the songs "Sound" and "Seven." But James is far more successful on its own ground, stretching with a full, textured sound on its anthemic "Ring the Bells" and "Born of Frustration."