Take Them On, On Your Own
(Virgin)
Release Date: 09/02/2003 12:00
Im in love without you, Robert Turner repeats on Were All in Love, wafting in a druggy guitar haze. Nailing a noncommittal, anesthetized cool, the BRMC frontman never gives himself entirely. Hes a kid looking for a cause, but hes skeptical, too (Im looking for something to shout/Something I know I cannot doubt), so he contradicts himself, plays with words and twists aphorisms into knots. Half the time this works; elsewhere he comes off as fumbling, if not masturbatory. Sometimes its moot, when hes buried in the wall-of-sound scuzz that muffles even the most barbed riffs here. Throughout, the dark spaciousness that boosted BRMCs uneven 2001 debut is replaced with garage-rock fist-pumpers, which are all catchy but cramped. Theyve lost the knack for the former: The down-tempo Shade of Blue has one beautiful moment where moody plodding gives way to cathartic ribbons of guitar, but then gets back to rambling.