Tim Booth, Bone

Tim Booth, Bone - When I heard that Tim Booth was leaving James to pursue a solo career, the first thing I thought was "oh good lord." While his first solo-ish venture, made with Angelo Badalamenti of David Lynch-movie-soundtrack fame was interesting, it was not really worth almost breaking up James to make.

My second thought was, "Actually, it's probably about time." Mainly because James' last 2 efforts had been very sub-standard, especially coming from the band who had recorded the sublime Laid and Strip Mine. My real hope was that Tim would find an interesting songwriting partner who would push him to experiment musically again but would reign in his impulses to wax lyrical about his spiritual beliefs, something that the other members of James had done rather well. Tim, you see, has some rather non-mainstream views about the world. All of this is great when he's analysing his own actions or talking specifially about his own emotions like throughout large portions of the album Seven, but when he starts telling people about the world, it, well, doesn't come across so intelligently.

Now, having finally released his solo effort, Bone, I think I was pleasantly surprised and disappointed in equal parts. He sounds brilliant. He's found a producer/co-songwriter who is pushing him a little musically, at least away from his more dirge-like tendencies (See "Down To The Sea" for an example of the Tim-dirge) and some of the textures are really quite interesting. But, as it's his own album, Tim's been given free reign lyrically so we're told what to think about evolution, creation, higher beings, etc. I don't know about you, but I think that spirituality is a pretty private thing, and I really don't want to sit and listen to an album where someone, rather smugly, tells me "I know what's what and what you should think cause I've been around the block a few times." Basically, he comes across as a smug, preaching hippy. It's actually put me off listening to the album.

That said, the tracks where he's singing about love or his childhood are rather nice. And a couple of the lyrically-suspect tracks have some intriguing musical stuff going on ("Bone", "Monkey God"). In the end, though, I think he lets himself down a lot by being unable to separate his religion from his songwriting. It is possible to express a world view without coming across as evangelical and he used to be able to do this when writing with James - there's not a James fan on the planet who didn't understand his spiritual beliefs after buying Seven, but on this record, he has not managed it.

Disappointing, but I suppose I still remain hopeful that after this bombs, he gets dropped by his label and his acting career doesn't catapult him into mega-stardom, that we can expect a James reunion tour in a few years time, hopefully as part of a Madchester package also featuring the Inspirals, The High, Northside and Bez :).