WHIPLASH REVIEWS 2

Sunday Times 2.97

For many people, James are the band who sang 'Sit Down' and then - apparently - did just that.  Their mainstream profile has dipped considerably over the past three years.  During that time they released Wah Wah, an experimental collaboration with Brian Eno, and singer Tim Booth released an album with the Twin Peaks composer, Angelo Badalamenti.  The former was fascinating if fragmentary, the latter was frankly disappointing, given the talent involved.  Neither was the stuff of which hit singles are made.  Whiplash, however, is.  Produced by Stephen Hague (with Eno credited as offering "frequent interference"), the album harnesses the sounds explored on Wah Wah to the band's proven pop-songwriting skills.  James sound much less angst-ridden than they used to; Booth's declamatory vocal style is here propelled forward by frenetic drums and acoustic guitars that positively glisten in the mix.  About half the album resides firmly in Planet Pop; elsewhere James explore slower tempos, rougher textures, simpler arrangements and dancier rhythms.  James always seemed to promise slightly more than they delivered.  On Whiplash, they've finally realised their potential.

Style Survivors : James mix old U2 with new trip-hop by Gary Susman, Providence Phoenix 27.3.97

"Everybody thinks the new wave is super/Just ask Linda Ronstadt or even Alice Cooper." So sang Weird Al Yankovic two decades ago in his parody "It's Still Billy Joel to Me," at a time when seemingly everyone in the pop universe was jumping on an up-from-the-underground bandwagon. In those days, it was the skinny-tie, power-pop, post-punk, so-called new wave. Today, it's electronica, techno, jungle, drum-and-bass, whatever they're calling it this week. Mainstream popsters from U2 to Eric Clapton are trip-hopping all over each other in the rush to make electronic hay while the ambient sun shines.

So listeners can be forgiven if they perceive the veteran pop sextet James as only the most recent Tricky-come-lately on their new release Whiplash (Fontana/Mercury). The Manchester-based band have been around for 14 years, building a rep on endless touring, finally breaking through in America with the goofy title track to their sixth album, 1993's Laid. The group's traditional pop smarts were evident, both in the tightly crafted arrangements and singer Tim Booth's literate, introspective lyrics (he named the band after James Joyce). A cursory listen to the 1993 edition of James wouldn't have suggested a band eager to rumble in the electronic jungle.

Still, in 1994, after three years of touring America, James nearly fell apart over the departure of longtime guitarist Larry Gott, the discovery that the band owed five years of back taxes, and Booth's creative restlessness. James released Wah Wah, a double album of experimental outtakes from the Laid sessions; waited while Booth satisfied his solo-project jones with 1995's Booth and the Bad Angel, an album he made with atmospheric composer Angelo Badalamenti; and finally reunited in early 1996 to record Whiplash, with consulting producer Brian Eno, who had overseen Laid. (Actually twiddling the knobs on Whiplash was producer Stephen Hague.) Given the presence of ambient godfather Eno and New Order vet Hague, as well as the three years of esoteric experimenting, the electronic noodling on Whiplash seems less a jarring jump into trendiness than a logical evolution.

Perhaps in an effort not to frighten off old fans, the new album moves only gradually into the jungle. The lead track, "Tomorrow," echoes "Laid" in David Baynton-Power's galloping, heart-racing drumbeats. Its dramatic build-up of rhythmic tension, soaring guitar riffs (played by Gott's fine replacement, Adrian Oxaal), circular chord progression, and vaguely inspirational lyrics all recall U2's "Where the Streets Have No Name" and "With or Without You." Booth's keening, ringing, breathy voice evokes Bono's throughout Whiplash.

"Lost a Friend" continues in a similar vein, as does the single, "She's a Star," with Booth showing off his fine falsetto and the band displaying a penchant for Beatlesque harmonies. There's even a folksy, pub-sing-along, may-the-road-rise-to-meet-you song called "Waltzing Along" (though it's in a 4/4 shuffle) before the trip-hop hits the fans.

The new stream begins to flow under "Greenpeace," where the burbling electronic undercurrent sets the mood for a compassion-fatigued meditation on environmentalism. James expertly evoke a similar sense of ennui and futility with the electronic bleeps of "Go to the Bank," which wryly offers consumerism as a cure for depression and heartbreak. The band explore a variety of other soundscapes, to uplifting, ironic, or brooding effect, on the next few songs before working their way back out of the electronic underbrush with the final two tracks. Even here, on the eerie "Watering Hole" and the deceptively quiet pastoral "Blue Pastures," there's a sinister humming synthesized ostinato.

Yet the most stirring songs on Whiplash reflect a surprisingly gloomy vision in their lyrics. "Lost a Friend" moans about the narcotizing effects of television. "She's a Star" is actually the tale of a lonely, unappreciated woman. "Avalanche" offers a bitter fuck-you to an ambitious adversary. That these tunes still play as anthemic fist wavers is testament to the band's expertise at creating rousing, rich textures. (Besides Booth, Baynton-Power, and Oxaal, the line-up includes bassist Jim Glennie, keyboardist Mark Hunter, and violinist Saul Davies.) Nonetheless, it's unusual to see a Beatles-inspired band with a full-time fiddle player experimenting with cutting-edge electronic music. Maybe James named the album Whiplash after the way one feels trying to look backward while moving forward.

James Album Offers Many Hits by Erin Butler, Old Black And Gold 4.97

Get "Laid." Now that I have your attention, I would like all those with dirty minds to get out of the gutter.

James is the British pop group whose most famous album and song is "Laid." But there is more to this group than just one song and one album. In the spring, James released a new album, "Whiplash." To promote it, James toured the U.S. and hit my hometown, Atlanta.

The concert was incredible, and I was introduced to many of my new favorite songs, including "Tomorrow," "Waltzing Along," and "She's a Star." There is an intensity and passion in the music of James, and "Whiplash" continues the tradition.

If it hadn't been for the drunken psycho behind me, the concert would have been sublime. 

I let the music sweep over me and all thoughts of the lunatic were swept out of the window. Not to mention I was also distracted by the band's exceptional good looks.

There are some CDs you buy because there are a few good songs, but the rest are nothing special. "Whiplash" is an exception.

Every song is unique and compelling, making the "repeat" button functional. Tim Booth, the lead singer and songwriter, gives James its distinctive British sound, which I happen to love.

If you need more than a good sound and hottie band to convince you, the lyrics further the intense power of the music.

Booth sings from the heart about love, sex, materialism, T.V and environmentalism. From "Waltzing Along": "May your mind be wide open/May your heart beat strong/May your mind's will be broken by this heartfelt song/May your mind set you free/May your heart lead you on."

I was amazed when I first came to campus that many people had never heard of James. 

So now my mission is to introduce everyone to this incredible band. I have found "Whiplash" a worthy investment; any CD that I can listen to over and over has to be special. Besides that, it's just good music.

Pitchfork 4.97

James have never been the band of the moment and it's really too late for that now. 1997 marks the 15th anniversary of the band's formation and Whiplash is no way to celebrate. Their ninth release is a very hit-and-miss affair, mixing some truly abysmal tracks in with some of the band's best work ever.

Whiplash's opening track, "Tomorrow," would be the only real reason to purchase the album. Co-written with Brian Eno, its music is quite anthemic and is their most lyrically inspiring track to date. ("Your grip is too strong / You can't catch love with a net or a gun / Gotta keep faith that your luck would change / Tomorrow.") James uses the same crescendo formula on "She's a Star" and it works. "Play Dead" is incredibly beautiful production-wise, but outright fails in the lyrics department.

Sadly, there's not much else of interest here. Over the course of their career, James has only released one really great album (1994's underappreciated James/Eno collaboration, Wah Wah) and a handful of terrific singles. A greatest hits collection from these guys would be the thing to own.

Allstar Online 4.97

Now that U2 has fully metamorphosed into a leather- clad insect hustling across the dance floor of post- modern irony, someone has to carry on the fine British tradition of earnest, optimistic pop, and James looks like a prime contender. On their sixth album, the veteran sextet toys with impetuous electronics and brooding mood swings ("Greenpeace" veers eerily from bitter passages of creaking world- weariness to restless dance grooves and back), but the Celtic- tinged common sense of their music is never far away. Haunting fiddle strains hover throughout the pulsing, pattering tension of "Play Dead," "She's a Star" captures the kind of elation that was the Waterboys' forté -- albeit without lunging to the brink of histrionics -- and "Blue Pastures" is both dreamy and down- to- earth. James may not be bombastic enough to conquer the world, but the music they make just might beguile it for a while.

James Latest Is Enough To Give You Whiplash by Beth Winegarner, Addicted To Noise 5.97

"They'll never make it big. They're too good." 

That's my friend Aryeh talking about Charming Hostess, a San Francisco band he's fond of. The more I think about it, the more I believe this statement is true of many bands who are simply too wonderful, too heartfelt, too ingenious to appeal to the masses. Perhaps this explains why James has never been a major success, despite 12 years in the music business, seven excellent albums and collaborations with folks like Brian Eno, Flood and Angelo Badalamenti.

Granted, James' last album, 1993's Laid sold better in the U.S. than any of their previous albums. But even in its home country, England, the band's career has been overshadowed by British-Isle groups with better marketing schemes, like the Smiths, Duran Duran and U2. Perhaps it's fortunate that James' latest, Whiplash, was released just before U2's Pop hit the stores. Even so, few have seemed to notice.

 The four-year gap between Laid and Whiplash was filled with side ventures and upheavals, both internal and external, which have colored their new record. Wah Wah, a compilation of jams, nascent songs and outtakes from the Laid recording sessions, appeared in 1994. Vocalist, Tim Booth, worked with Badalamenti in 1995 to make the dark, expansive Booth and the Bad Angel record. Bands like Oasis, Blur and Bush brought the English music scene to the world's attention for the first time in ten years. And during the writing of what would become Whiplash, guitarist Larry Gott, one of James' founding members, announced he no longer wanted to be part of the band.

All of these influences are woven through Whiplash, a record which combines James constants--the folksy undertones, the pop-driven feel, Booth's gorgeous, clear vocals--with some new elements like harder-edged dance rhythms and thumping rock arrangements. Though this record lacks the exhilarating abandon of 1992's Seven or the melancholy ruminations of Laid, it's a solid, expansive and intelligent album which elegantly combines '80s idealism with '90s edginess.

Whiplash opens with "Tomorrow," a sweeping, jangly-guitared number lifted from the Wah Wah sessions and given new life with an understated string arrangement led by James violinist Saul Davies. It's an uplifting beginning to this mostly-upbeat record, letting listeners know that James sees a bright future for itself: "Gotta keep faith that your path will change/Gotta keep faith that your luck will change tomorrow."

James' good cheer returns throughout the record, decorated with anthem-like piano and sweeping slide guitar in the first single, "She's A Star;" emerging from cold, throbbing rhythms and the searching chorus of "Play Dead;" bouncing along with Jim Glennie's bass line and chant-along backing vocals on "Avalanche" and swinging with the drag-queen-inspired lyrics of "Homeboy." Booth's vocals soar from deep, clean tones to a breathtaking falsetto, whirling through layers of chiming guitars supplied by Adrian Oxaal.

 In other moments, James delves into darker themes, like the Laid-inflected gloom of "Waltzing Along", which impossibly weaves a three-beat waltz into a four-time swing. Oxaal's guitar echoes through like the voice of a mourning woman as Booth sings of loneliness and release in lines like "These wounds are all self-imposed... All roads lead on to death row/Who knows what's after?" But the chorus lends a proud, if cutting, sense of hope: "May your mind be wide open/May your heart beat strong/May your mind's will be broken/By this heartfelt song."

On "Greenpeace," the band composes a movement in which three distinct voices represent the debate over environmental protection. In the first, an echoed music box tinkles sadly in the distance as Booth's disaffected voice sings from the apathetic masses: "I don't like the world I see/ So I'll avert my gaze to the TV." In the second, low ringing bell tones accompany Booth's guttural portrayal of big business: "Gonna rape this world with my straight lines/Gonna straighten her out/Because nature is just history." And in the third, Booth's falsetto speaks for Mother Earth herself as a tripped-up rhythm and mechanical drone shudder behind "her." It's a powerful and important reflection on the modern world--especially considering how many of James' contemporaries have abandoned their political stances in favor of the latest fashion craze.

Whiplash is perhaps best defined by its extremes. "Go to the Bank" begins with a sinuous gypsy violin line and, without warning, launches into an inescapable dance rhythm; every other instrument is stripped to its essence as Booth rhapsodizes about the wonders of consumerism and excess, his delivery dripping with sarcasm. Again on "Blue Pastures," the musicianship is minimal; Glennie's bass meanders under Booth's gentle croon, creating a kind of lullaby. The guitar shivers in as Booth sings "I'm walking to the sound of distant bells." At moments the lyric considers bad times, even suicide. But as the drums make a brief appearance, the tone changes to one of tentative hope that carries to the closing line, "I fall into a sleep." Then the guitars fade out, leaving a sweet, gentle silence in their wake.

Whether their arrangements be elaborate or humble, James has created yet another gratifying record which compromises nothing in the way of artistic license. While its style might sometimes be awkward, overly ambitious or unabashedly gorgeous, this band makes no apologies for itself. James may never make it big, but at least they're achieving their own dream, never settling for a style which might do little more than satisfy the masses.

Misfit City

When a band have made it, are popular, and their songs are heard in every commercial outlet, a person is simply playing a game of pathetic one-upmanship if they smugly proclaim: "Oh, I liked them when they were a cult band. They've gone all pop now!". These are very sad people.

Ahem. Now...

I liked James when they were a cult band. They've gone all pop now. Yes, I admit it. I am a sad person and I claim my five pounds.

In truth, I lost touch with James after "Gold Mother", when they entered the pop stratosphere and those T-shirts became ubiquitous. My attitude to "Sit Down" exemplifies my attitude to "Whiplash". "Sit Down" started life as a strumalong of identification with those who felt alone or slightly dispossessed, insecure. It was re-released as an epic soundtrack which seemed to command "You WILL Sit Down!!". And whilst every baggy-shirted indie kid and raver performed the increasingly meaningless charade of plonking their arses on the stage, that song (and James themselves) sounded, to these ears, like a New Age, slightly more subtle Simple Minds. When my mother chose "Sit Down" as her favourite song, opined that Tim Booth was "a nice young man" and started asking me which one in the band was "James", my interest in the band as a pop entity virtually evaporated. (You none-more-punk, you! - ED.)

"Whiplash" promises much. It is heralded as "a return to form". For old James fans, this is a pronouncement  we've heard before. But the opening track, "Tomorrow", has the pulsing rhythm, the simplicity and directness, the expanding layers of sound that I so remember were classic James; and so it is better to forget, perhaps, that this song is about three years old and first appeared in embryonic form on '94's experimental  excursion "Wah Wah". Elsewhere, "Lost A Friend" features verses with a skeletal musical backing and Booth returning to hitting all those strange half-note harmonies of old, before breaking into the obligatory big chorus. It's still James' version of their Big Music, but it no longer lumbers like an over-produced fabrication as in recent years. Sadly, trite lyrics like "My TV's telling me / that all of our money goes into the military" and "I see some soldiers with guns / they are killing for fun / they are killing to entertain me" do not raise my political consciousness one iota. May I call you Bono, Tim?

This album's biggest problems come where the much-vaunted contemporary feel exerts itself. There is always an awful doubt when a band returns from a long break saying that they've been listening to techno/trip-hop/drum'n'bass/ambient (or whatever; delete as applicable), and the new masterpiece is produced under these influences. Eighty per cent of "Whiplash" features these dabbles in new styles, mostly unsatisfactorily. The album's first single, "She's A Star", is the most startling and perhaps most successful, sounding like Suede Lite. But it lacks Brett Anderson's detailing of urban degeneration, suburbia and glamorous smack habits. With Suede, "She's A Star" would be blackly ironic - she would be a lonely girl in a dead commuter belt, or a wasted junkie. But Tim means it - she really is a "star". That's lovely for him and her (whoever she may be), but ultimately rather naive for us.

"Go To The Bank" is roughly the third song on the album that mentions TVs, so James have obviously spent their time away wisely. Seemingly a diatribe against the evils of money, the lyrics leave a bad taste in the mouth with the repeated line "it all belongs to Caesar...".

Is someone rather peeved about recently  having to settle a large bill for unpaid taxes, eh? This track and the next, "Play Dead", are full of techno effects that ultimately do not go far enough. They dabble in electronica, but still align themselves to typical James nervy strumalongs. But the two styles don't gel, and they'd be more satisfying as one or the other.

"Play Dead", in particular, could be one of James' truly haunting acoustic numbers if it dropped the excess techno zeitgeist baggage: it is one of the few obviously beautiful melodies here.

"Greenpeace" (oh Tim, do you have to be so fucking obvious? What next? "Veggie"? "'90s Hippie"? "Beanbag"?) is a dark, slightly rockier take on trip-hop, alternating between distorted vocals and ambience in the verses and a chorus that feels like it's built on the bassline of Massive Attack's "Safe From Harm". It is leaden, and rather desperate to show how contemporary it is.

Where James once had that aura of being a band of weird but pleasant loners down the end of the corridor, they now come across more like insufferably tedious born-again Christians but, as "Greenpeace" shows, ones who are desperate to prove to the church elders that they are hip and rebellious, and that "this is what the kids are into." It's all so frustrating when elsewhere there's such a blatant demonstration of the simple, peculiar emotional alchemy that James can muster so well. I'm talking about "Blue Pastures", a quiet, near-acoustic whisper of a coda to "Whiplash"'s technophilic sprawl. Jim Glennie's bass rings like a sleepy bell, guitars fill out dark clouds in the sky, and  James' old Patti Smith influences are evoked once more as Booth unwinds the story: someone quietly putting things to rights, then walking out into the snow to die. Their thoughts slow, the ground gets closer. Snow covering. Peace arriving. Fade-out. Perfection - for once, we respond with tears of compassion and recognition rather than of frustration.

But in the reckoning, this album is a disappointment after the marvellous and underrated "Wah Wah". Which proved that, in the right laid-back conditions and with the right production influence from Brian Eno (who part-produced and "interfered" with this one, but evidently not enough), James could come up with the  post-modern experimental pop they so desperately seek on "Whiplash". Chained, often rather clumsily, to the typical James of old, the two styles pull against each other. U2 have managed to cling to the bandwagon by enlisting the best technoheads around. If James want to do likewise, they'd better get someone who can do a better job at improving the rather leaden attempts at electronica on here. Or they can forget the zeitgeist and return to being the pre-pomposity weirdo folkies still to be glimpsed occasionally.

Which way, Tim?