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| Bbc |
 If Brett Anderson’s fourth solo album isn’t quite the fringe-flicking hit hoped for from a man who reclaimed his fop-rock crown at Suede’s reunion gigs, the reason might lie in the timing. Working with go-to session guy Leo Abrahams, Anderson mapped out Black Rainbows before Suede’s resurgence. So it’s less an album spurred by Suede’s rebirth than his flirtation with the idea of fronting a rock band again, still the metier that most suits Anderson but one that’s only tentatively embraced here.A self-reinvention it isn’t, as the cover affirms. Cheekbones? Check. Shadows? Check. But Black Rainbows at least quiets concerns that Anderson’s hair is fuller than his creative tank. If his morose 2009 album, Slow Attack, made Anderson sound aged before his time – the camp-macho king of wastrel town reduced to glum reveries about swans and sipping tea – the opening fuzz of feedback here suggests he’s popped some pain relief and started sloughing off the 90s hangover. The opening Unsung slow-broods towards the kind of epically swooning chorus his voice is made for. The single Brittle Heart is better still, summoning reserves of louche swagger to prove that there’s nothing like a cocksure and nonchalant melody to offset an over-reliance on bohemian-romantic clichés (hello, "ashtray eyes" and "carpet burns") and stretch a limited range. The mid-section lets him down, slumping into the bad habits of his debut solo album. This Must Be Where It Ends peddles vagaries ("Mysteries help me ’cause your hair is like the autumn") even more befuddling than the extravagantly bewildering Colour of the Night from his solo debut. Tune-wise, The Exiles and I Count the Times refuse to stick after 10 assiduously counted plays, favouring enervating portent over propulsion....full text |
| Pitchfork |
| Back in 1992, you couldn't find two rock acts more diametrically opposed than Pavement and Suede-- the former were all-American every-dudes indulging in cryptic, dissonant slop-pop; the latter were libidinous, decadent Brit androgynes with Wembley-sized ambitions. And yet the bands shared uncannily similar trajectories-- each was at the forefront of significant sea changes in its home country's independent music scene (lo-fi American indie rock for the former, Britpop for the latter), only to peter out around the turn of the millennium. Both bands' respective frontmen-- Stephen Malkmus and Brett Anderson-- have since embarked on solo careers that have seen each go to great lengths to redefine himself: Malkmus as a guitar hero, Anderson as a brooding balladeer. And both had to put those personal evolutions on hold last year to take their old bands on the reunion-tour circuit for the sole purpose of airing out their 90s-era classics, with no intention of recording new material. That last point is underscored by the fact that, this year, to the month, Malkmus and Anderson have swiftly resumed their solo careers as if those Pavement and Suede reunions never happened. Like Malkmus' recent Mirror Traffic, the origins of Anderson's fourth album, Black Rainbows, predate the reformation of his marquee band. But both albums are infused with the anticipation of what was to come: just as Malkmus reins in the Jicks-ian jamming on Mirror Traffic in favor of more Pavement-like concision, Black Rainbows sees Anderson-- after three relatively sullen and sedate solo releases-- cautiously reconnecting with his suppressed pop-star swagger. When he plaintively sings, "give me your brittle heart and I'll light a fire," on the album's lead single, it's almost as if he's pleading for his old job back. That's not to say Black Rainbows is some calculated '92 throwback. As ever, Anderson likes to speak in suggestive metaphors ("ashtray eyes," "a sabotage of lipstick," "burning mattress," "paper cuts," "carpet burns"-- the last two of which turn up on multiple songs), though his withered voice is far less elastic and outrageous than it was 20 years ago. And in lieu of Suede's glam-rock crunch, the new album mostly favors the atmospheric, middle-aged Brit-rock of, say, Urban Hymns-era Verve or latter-day Echo and the Bunnymen. (The invitation to "come taste the orange blossom" on "In the House of Numbers" is especially McCullochian in its pastoral whimsy.) As such, there's often a palpable disconnect between Anderson's naughty narratives and the passivity of the performances: only in its accelerated, 40-second finale does the shimmering "Crash About to Happen" realize its potential as a Stone Roses-worthy student-disco staple, while the sluggish, bluesy swing of "Thin Men Dancing" sounds like it'd be more at home on a Beady Eye album. But in the elegant opening ballad, "Unsung", and the ticking time-bomb intensity of "The Exiles", we hear a boldness that's largely been absent from Anderson's solo work to date. "I am yearning/ I'm still burning," he dramatically declares on the latter-- and while Black Rainbows may represent more of a flickering flame than a raging inferno, it at least yields some evidence that Anderson's once-fiery persona has not been completely extinguished....full text |
| Independent |
| With the best will in the world, a fourth solo album of elegant, cello-backed ballads might have been too much, even for devoted Anderson fans. So, perhaps inspired by Suede's reunion, the singer has made a rock album. Black Rainbows isn't all-out kick-ass noise but, by turns, spindly and fuzzy, smooth and angular. "The Exiles" possesses a menace we haven't heard since "Introducing the Band" and if it's sweeping romanticism you want, nobody does it better....full text |
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