EUGENE MC GUINNESS - Chroma

I don't know why I keep insisting on listening carefully to every new Eugene Mc Guinness album.

Maybe because the imagination of his debut had raised hopes for a generational renewal on the British music scene, or maybe because that nervy melodic drive running through all his albums (including the uneven "The Invitation To Voyage") seemed suited to breaking up the saccharine britpop of recent years.

Whatever the reasons that led me to put my faith in "Chroma", the young man's fourth album, they have now definitively collapsed and been buried under a mountain of tedious, directionless melodies that Eugene fails to make his own even through his vocal delivery.

In the past we've used the term psychedelic to justify graphic-sonic exercises like "Fairlight", or the umpteenth fake Beatles covers (listen to "Godiva", which steals-slash-pays homage to their "Day Tripper"), and even the rhythmic scraps indebted to Talking Heads that now sound like Tom Tom Club in the backstage ("I Drink Your Milkshake") or a voiceless B-52s ("She Paints Houses"), but now it's time to sum things up.

Everything seems to turn the wrong way on "Chroma": producer Dan Carey lingers on the most indie facets of McGuinness's sound, warping his vocal gifts into something tedious and grating ("Immortals") in a failed attempt to sound alternative, while the lo-fi-noise wall of sound overwhelms the few good melodic ideas ("Amazing Grace") and reduces the album's one romantic escape ("All In All") to a chant that's pleasant in places but often borders on tedious.

What removes any doubt about the English musician's present, and perhaps future, is the realization that tracks like "I Drink Your Milkshake" and "All In All", for all their inconsistency, represent the best of "Chroma", and staying silent on the rest is simply an act of mercy I allow myself before finally giving up on any further chances for McGuinness.

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07/10/2014