When I first heard of Gomez I was but a wee bairn (that’s Scottish for too young) and it was the glorious nineties. They had just released their debut album ‘Bring it On’ and as I was in my punk days it passed me by like a bus with ‘sorry no service’ displayed.
I regret greatly not listening to this album with some effort, when I was to listen to it again, older and wiser - to say I loved it would be an understatement.
I enthusiastically went out and bought all six of their albums and listened to them thoroughly.
The first album I later realised was their strongest, not just for the quality of the writing but also for the artwork (the artwork on their 2006 album ‘How We Operate’ is like a dog with no legs was let loose on Photoshop).
What seems to be consistent with Gomez is their inconsistency. Their first few albums had a select few tracks with some unbeatable energy, namely the title track from ‘Shot Shot’ which had me listening to it twice a day without fail or else I couldn’t muster the energy to make a cup of tea. Maybe that’s my problem.
A return of the unbeatable unpredictability that is Gomez returns with the song ‘Lost Track’ on A New Tide. The song begins with an almost annoying guitar riff but my time was infinitely well spent when the blistering cello bridge section hit me like a wet lump of turf.
Ben Ottewell’s hauntingly powerful voice strengthens each song with his scratchy tones. He could be accurately called a clinically sane version of Tom Waits.
The other vocalists in the band, Ian Ball and Tom Gray seem to pale in comparison. The songs sung by Ian Ball seem to lack the heart-felt quality that only Ottewell can achieve. On top of this the Ball songs seem to have a more poppy/mainstream feel (although ‘Other Plans’ does have a pleasant 1970s sitcom quality to it with a brilliant bridge section) whereas there’s something different about Ottewell’s tunes.
The Album as an album feels like a good summer with a decent amount of cheerful tunes to keep you upbeat on a hard day or give you ADHD on an easy day. Unlike their earlier albums the tracks seem to flow into each other and you can find yourself listening to the whole album again and again rather than picking your favourite tracks and then leaving out the rest. This can be a good thing, but sometimes it can be a bad thing. I found myself listening to my favourite tracks on ‘Bring it On’ and ‘Shot Shot’ and missing out the rest because they stood out from the rest, they were the Alps of the album. This album unfortunately is the Holland of albums.
I’ve had A New Tide for over a month now and I have listened to it all the way through probably about five or six times (that’s very few for me), mainly due to the fact that very little of this album jumps out at me and breaks some boundaries.
Like leather trousers, the album does require some effort to get into and considering there’s better Gomez albums out there I can’t see an awful lot of Gomez fans taking to it so well. This is taking into account that the majority of Gomez fans are eccentric weirdoes like me.
So in conclusion I would say that Gomez may have found a New Tide in this album. It may draw in a newer, younger audience and softly introduce people to their sound which would always be a plus as (despite me slating this album) their music has been greatly influential and powerful. It is even appreciated by academics in the music scene. It was my lecturer in Popular and World Music, Alan Greenwood that told me to listen to them again as he said that they showed the nuances (subtleties) that most popular music is lacking.
Overall I’d give this album a 6/10 for originality, an 8/10 for listenability, 2/10 for the ‘play it loud’ factor and 10/10 for talent.
Tommy McMahon
Meet the Author on Dead Meet: tommy_the_cat
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