STATELESS - Matilda

The starting idea is appealing, though the actual outcome of a work like "Matilda" is, to be honest, a bit less successful. It's the second full-length from the Leeds quartet, who just four years ago, thanks to their self-titled debut album on !K7, drew more than a few smiles of stunned appreciation. Having since landed at Ninja Tune, Stateless enlisted a top-tier producer (Damian Taylor) and lined up some mouth-watering collaborations: with Shara Worden (better known as My Brightest Diamond, whom we hear here in the jazz of "I'm On Fire" - spectral at first, then operatic, among the album's best moments), with the venerable, formidable Dj Shadow, and with the invaluable Balanescu String Quartet.

The band tries to broaden the boundaries of its core vocabulary, which on its own would already combine equal parts old-school trip-hop, sample-based electronics and refined psych-pop songcraft indebted to Radiohead, folding in sonic elements steeped in caressing Middle Eastern exoticism that nevertheless too often dissipate into rather uneven or weak solutions.

Sumptuous moments like "Song For The Outsider", "Ariel", or even the stellar r'n'b of "Miles To Go" can be enjoyed for the fine decorative work defining their fabrics and drapery, poised between the pure vertigo of the arabesque and an unresolved stylistic riddle. Elsewhere, a Buckley-esque soul-blues cloaked in electronics blends into the vivid colors of a gypsy fantasy. But what prevails is a leaden, somewhat stale mood, often unfocused and not always so accomplished or coherent in its forms and stylistic mixtures (the gospel of "Junior", the opening "Curtain Call").

An overall somewhat transitional effort, which nonetheless hints at the band's commendable will to keep venturing into the rugged density of an introspective sound. With a sharper sense of synthesis and a leaner rigor, truly thrilling results could be within reach.

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24/04/2011