single gun theory

[Jane Francksen <FRANCKSEN@CHEERS.gs.com>]

thanks to whoever recommended the latest "single gun theory". i bought it before
christmas and it's hardly been out of the machine since. although i like it a 
lot, i feel it has some glaring faults.

firstly, the album is no more than the sum of its parts. i get the feeling that 
if you put anybody half competent in a studio with a female "indie-style" 
vocalist, a decent drum-machine and lots of mainly ethnic samplings, and played 
them "my life in the bush of ghosts" enough they'd be able to do as well or 
better. only rarely do the components really interact and become something 
bigger (eg "i am what i see").

secondly, the lyrics are pretty pedestrian and banal.(eg "great palaces of 
immortal splendour" sounds like it came out of a twelfth-grade poetry 
anthology, try "i ain't no student of ancient culture, but i know a neat 
excavation" instead). they sing about a man murdering his lover and the nuking
of baghdad. in the mouths of an indie band it all sounds quite well-meaning and
sympathetic, but the words are so devoid of any emotional register that if you
imagined the same songs recorded by let's say a heavy metal band with a male
vocalist, it would sound quite offensive.

i guess what i'm saying is that it lacks any signs of conviction or genius.
that said, i still like it and listen to it & if there are any earlier albums
in a similar vein which sound a bit dirtier i'd like to hear.

jane