Don't Forget Who You Are

Coming to prominence as Alex Turner's foil in the strikingly retro the Last Shadow Puppets, Miles Kane is still besotted with the past, but on his second solo album, Don't Forget Who You Are, he's left behind Baroque or any other traces of a gentler, folkier pop. Instead, he paints entirely in bold, bright colors, happily reviving memories of Swinging London and T Rextacy, but by fusing these two glorious eras of British pop, he inevitably evokes the ghost of Brit-pop, that heady '90s phenomenon that crystallized the classic sounds of Britain. Any which way you cut it, Don't Forget Who You Are is a throwback, so what matters is execution, and this is where Kane excels, both in construction and production. Occasionally working with a couple of savvy collaborators -- most notably Paul Weller and Andy Partridge, two writers who know a thing or two about sharp revivalism -- Kane knows how to sculpt a song, which means he not only knows the power of a snappy melody and a catchy riff, but he understands momentum, letting the song gain power as it inevitably works its way from verse to chorus to bridge. Those songs are the skeleton of Don't Forget Who You Are, but what initially impresses is the enthusiasm, how Kane and company play with abandon and how the album speeds along in a carnivalesque rush. This isn't a dogged re-creation of the past, the work of an artist concerned with painting within the lines, this is an album of celebration of groovy sounds that is pretty hard to resist. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine

アレックス・ターナーとのユニットでも知られるマイルズ・ケインの2作目。最近コラボづいているポール・ウェラーが作曲で参加していたり、ドラマーはクリス・シャーロック(ビーディ・アイ)の息子だったり、イアン・ブロウディがプロデュースしていたりと話題に事欠かない。ここでのムダを削ぎ落としたシンプルで勢いのあるメロディー&曲構成に、UKロック界の重要人物たちを魅了して止まない主役の才能が光っている。
bounce (C)吾郎メモ