The Hours - Narcissus Road (AM)
3/5
By: Michael Cragg
The Hours, made up of singer Antony Green and keyboardist Martin Slattery, are no strangers to the music business and the perils that abound. Between them they've played with Elastica, Pulp, UNKLE, Black Grape and together in Joe Strummer's The Mescaleros. Genn's stint in the latter was cut short following a full-blown crack and heroin addiction, funded in part by £100,000 he'd earned during a songwriting stint with Robbie Williams. Any connection between the addiction and 'Mr Entertainment' is purely coincidental, however.
It's this addiction, and the sense of relief that the album was even completed, that infuses every minute of these 11 songs. Opener 'Ali in the Jungle' lays down the gauntlet, a big bold statement on rising up from the ashes. It starts out small, with prosaic, pop-psychology ("It's not how you start/ it's how you finish"), before the music and the lyrics reach for something bigger. By the end - over thumping piano stabs, handclaps and a relentless beat - Glenn compares his struggle to that of Nelson Mandela, Mohammed Ali, and finally proclaims "it's the greatest comeback since Lazarus". If he weren't so sincere it would be laughable.
Musically 'Narcissus Road' is never subtle; it's swelling strings and piano thrums aimed directly at Coldplay fans looking for more of an edge. But its appeal is broadened by tracks like 'Love You More' which races along on an electronic beat a la Kasabian, and carries a lyric that any Oasis fan would relish; "I love you more than my record collection/ I love you more than my football team". When they get it right, the result can be an exhilarating catharsis, when they get it wrong, however, as they do on the grandiose ballad 'Icarus', the result brings to mind Keane and a dozen other bands.
'Narcissus Road' is never going to be anyone's favourite album, and the lack of subtlety can be a bit over-powering, but it doesn't ever try to be more then a well-produced, huge-sounding rock album. For now, that's just about enough.
Artists in this article: The Hours
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