The Sleepy Jackson - Personality; One Was A Spider, One Was A Bird (Virgin)
4/5
By: Yousif Nur
The Sleepy Jackson, well, let's face facts here - Luke Steele has a trait for being a little nuts. But then history has shown us that some of the more eccentric personalities have made some of the most renowned and respected pop-crafted music over the last thirty years; Syd Barrett, Brian Wilson, Prince et al.
And it's with 'Personality - One Was A Spider, One Was Bird', the Jackson's second, that a white pillared, marble-halled grandeur setting allows for a big record of Mercury Rev / Todd Rundgren-like proportions. A setting like that has to host itself to dreamy, carefully worked, heightened melodramatics. Fortunately this is provided with grand pianos, trumpets, string sections, and backing vocals en masse. A fascinating thing is that when all amalgamated, it sounds sweet, not too hard to swallow or manage but enough to lull one into a picturesque setting of utopia. Another thing to note is the theme of the album - divinity; 'Devil Was In My Yard', 'God Lead Your Soul', 'God Knows', 'Higher Than Hell'... You think that's obsessed, wait till you hear the lyrics.
The first single lifted from the album 'God Lead Your Soul' is driven by acoustic guitars, a backing choir and string section as though it were a theatre production. 'Devil Was In My Yard' provides much chord and tone changes, 'I Understand What You Want But I Just Don't Agree' isn't so much a nod to Prince 'Raspberry Beret' but Luke Steele's arrangement if he'd thought of the concept a good two decades prior to Prince having that little spark of ingenuity.
'Personality' then is one of the better albums of 2006, and good to know that there's still a place for big soundscapes and loons like Mr. Steele.
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