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Title: Another Mediocre Solo Effort
Review: How can a guy blessed with such a tangible, emotive voice be making such mediocre albums? He loses his band mates, spends more time with the wife and kid, and mellows out. You'll find none of the excruciating despair or alienated angst of Ashcroft's work with the Verve here. He's happy, the songs are happy. Everything's peachy . . . that is, except the album. When Ashcroft, the undisputed master of melancholic love songs, shows up on other people's records (see The Chemical Brothers' "Come With Us" or UNKLE's "Psyence Fiction"), he delivers. So why, a fan's got to wonder, doesn't he expose that edginess when the limelight's squarely on his gangly physique? I give up.
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