album review – gomez – a new tide
A review of the new Gomez album, A New Tide by yours truly is up over at Rabbit Hole Urban Music.
Executive summary: I like it, but I miss the Good Old Days™.
Right this way if you’d like to read it.
A review of the new Gomez album, A New Tide by yours truly is up over at Rabbit Hole Urban Music.
Executive summary: I like it, but I miss the Good Old Days™.
Right this way if you’d like to read it.
Hmm, it’s nice to see a Gomez review from someone who actually knows and likes Gomez. I’ve thought every Gomez record prior to this one has been a step forward — loved the rawking on Split the Difference, adored all but about 20 seconds of How We Operate (including girlshapedlovedrug, which I’ve always thought was the true-love counterpart of Dire Tribe — and what’s so wrong with mashed-up-phrase song titles? Tom Gray always manages to be both incredibly sweet and incredibly don’t-give-a-fuck-what-you-think at the same time. Three years on, it’s still one of my go-to happy-making songs.)
This one though… it will take more listens to form a solid opinion, but so far I’m underwhelmed. It’s a bit samey and plagued by the awful current trend in pop music toward wanky neo-folk. Ian’s singing on Mix, which would otherwise by a pretty great track, is the worst culprit here — this is honestly the first time I’ve ever found a Gomez record to follow a trend, let alone a bad one. The Ben songs and Ian songs don’t gel together the way they did on previous albums. There’s not nearly enough of Tom; and If I Asked You Nicely, while definitely a great pop song, doesn’t seem to have the pop staying power of girlshaped or Don’t Make Me Laugh or Caravan or Catch Me Up, or the punk-assedness of Silence or Dire Tribe or Fill My Cup. It’s just an ok entry in the Tom canon.
I still love this band and this will probably end up being one of my favourite releases of the year just because it’s Gomez and because of the great production and fun use of instruments and electronics which is still there and arguably done better than on STD or HWO (as opposed to the melodies, vocals and lyrics). But so far, by Gomez standards at least, it’s not that great. And I’m not even pining for the days of Liquid Skin.
Hi, thanks for your thoughts.
I suppose to me, after Liquid Skin the albums started lacking consistency. The best tracks from “In Our Gun” were great, but I just found some of the others were a bit gimmicky or shallow in comparison.
Good call on wanky neo-folk, as someone who listens to actual folk it’s pretty sad seeing all these bands “invent” or “discover” lo-fi (Art Brut: “call it lo-fi…/if you say so/cool your warm jets/Brian Eno”).
I also agree that the different vocal styles don’t play off one another like they should on this album, which is a shame.
I too will have to wait and see whether it’s a grower…