It's been almost 7 full years since Pulp, and with no American release for his other band Relaxed Muscle, Jarvis is back on this side of the ocean. And damn is it good for him to be back. With a strong debut solo album and a limited number of shows over here as well, hopefully he can come back full blast.
After a short instrumental start, the album takes off with leading single "Don't Let Him Waste Your Time". The lyrics slide off his tongue with the cunning taste of sweetness and bitterness all at the same time as with his Pulp days. "Black Magic", taking a riff from "Crimson and Clover", draws you in softly until the chorus tears through your ears when Jarvis screams out "Black Magic that blows your mind away". It's a song that grabs you and tells you "we can't escape; we're born to die but I'm gonna give it a real good try". "Heavy Weather" starts off with the usual Pulpish voice but then blossoms into his own song, and the background rain provides a nice sense of clamness during the verses, getting you pumped up for each chorus. Then Jarvis strikes off a double bout of softer numbers with "I Will Kill Again", a bitter note to an old friend, and "Baby's Coming Back To Me", a wishful tune of reuniting with a loved one, before laying into fat children with...uh..."Fat Children".
"Oh the parents are the problem; giving birth to maggots without the sense to become flies. So pander to your pampered little princess-of such enormous size."
"From Auschwitz to Ipswich" falls under the same lines of the political message he displayed in his earlier song "Cunts Are Still Running The World" but with more of a care-free attitude. In "Tonite", Jarvis refers back to his past loves and adventures "Somebody falls in love. Somebody falls from a window-sill" while trying to teach us his wisdom. "Big Julie" is the ballad of the album, an honest tribute to a mediocre person who can rise above everyone else if they only tried. "Quantum Theory" is the only dull moment in the album, too soft and just not enough to keep my interest going except for the fact that "Running The World" is attached to it as a hidden track. The political bitterness and honest truth of that song gets me everytime.
Now enjoy his video for "Don't Let Him Waste Your Time" now being shown in driving schools everywhere.
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