Old fashioned, maybe even a little antiquated, but far from past it.
The Charlatans have been described as survivors since a remarkably early stage, the adjective applied in relation to both their bounce back after a flop second album and also their continued success in the wake of the sad death of original keyboardist Rob Collins.
Thirteen years on from that, however, and The Charlatans would be survivors in any case, on the simpler grounds of having been together a very long time. Certainly there’s a note of defying the odds to the release of what is, impressively, the band’s 11th album. Now very much middle-aged men, Tim Burgess and co can scarcely hope to win much in the way of fresh blood in a musical landscape so utterly different from that of their heyday, something the limp number 39 chart placing of 2008’s You Cross My Path confirmed. One assumes that the band is more a question of love than money at this stage; gratifyingly, that’s an impression borne out by Who We Touch, an album clearly put together with a huge amount of care. That it sounds a little out of date in 2010 is by the by: they’re a group from a different era who feel no pressure to pretend otherwise.
Lees de rest van deze review op BBC CD recensies (Engels)
Bron: BBC Music