Odludek ［LP+CD］＜初回生産限定盤＞

全英1位に2度輝いているマンチェスター出身のロック・バンド、ダヴズのフロントマン、ジミ・グッドウィンがソロ・デビュー・アルバムをテンプルズ等が所属する＜HeavenlyRecordings＞からリリース!ジミ本人とダヴズ、ピクシーズ等を手掛ける敏腕プロデューサー、ダン・オースティンの共同プロデュースで制作された本作はエルボーのフロントマン、ガイ・ガーヴェイが共作した複数の楽曲を収録。またポール・ウェラーの長年のパートナー、サイモン・ダインも収録曲「Didsbury Girl」にゲスト参加している。ブラス・セクションを取り入れた壮大なロック・ソング、ビートの効いたダンス・ナンバー、カントリー調のアコースティック・ソングまでその全てにダヴズ顔負けの美メロが貫かれた至極のアルバムが完成!

Odludek, the solo debut from Doves' Jimi Goodwin, makes up for what it lacks in consistency of tone with a pioneering spirit that both mocks and celebrates the digital age. Genres be damned, Goodwin is at his heart a world-weary Brit-pop songsmith in the vein of Elbow's Guy Garvey, and there is some of that to be found here, but for the most part, Odludek's ten largely disparate tracks play like somebody bumped into the shuffle button while the DJ was taking a smoke break. The one-two punch of opener "Terracotta Warrior" and its kissing cousin "Didsbury Girl," both expansive, semi-traditional, cerebral English alt-rock anthems, helps ease the listener into the proceedings, which take a significant left turn on the wily Kurt Weill-ian "Man v. Dingo" and the frenetic, jungle-kissed "Live Like a River," the latter of which wouldn't have sounded out of place on David Bowie's electro-loving Earthling. Elsewhere, Goodwin dials things back a bit and dips his toes into the warm and weary, Richard Hawley-annexed section of the Thames on the lovely and lonely "Keep My Soul in Song," offers up an affable ode to the yin and yang of hedonism on the north country stomp-fest "Oh! Whiskey," and impresses with a sweeping and inspired blend of ambient pop and soaring arena rock on the Coldplay-esque "Ghost of the Empties." Goodwin himself described Odludek as a "crazy mixtape," and it resonates as such, but somewhere in between his rich, weathered baritone and his self-deprecating lyrics, the listener is charmed into submission, and it all goes down like a perfectly sessionable ale, albeit one with peculiar origins. ~ James Christopher Monger