Graham Coxon
The Spinning Top (Transgressive)
Graham Coxon
The Spinning Top
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So here it is, the seventh solo album from the greatest guitar player of his generation, equaling the amount of long players Blur have in their canon, albeit including Think Tank which Coxon, as has been widely publicised, had very little to do with.
Of course Blur are back this Summer which makes the timing of this solo album a strange little deterrent but a most welcome one. From the gently picked ‘Look Into The Light’, to the downbeat pop of ‘This House’ it’s clear that Coxon has been gathering his strongest and most reflective songs to date. The 8 minute epic ‘In The Morning’, swoons along with such authentic finesse that it’s hard to believe it wasn’t recorded in the 60’s, ‘Perfect Love’ and ‘Caspian ‘Sea’ are playful and mischievous, and ‘If You Want Me’ starts sombre but soon rips into classic Coxon territory of fuzzy distorted guitars and discordant interludes.
The album’s most gorgeous moments come in the form of ‘Brave the Storm’ - “the rain falls down, such a familiar sound, I’m on the ground and wet, like the first time we met” – Coxon singing with a certain joie de vivre over a lush arrangement of flutes and female harmonies, and ‘Home’ suggesting that if Blur do go on a proper tour, it won’t be an overlong one – “home, sanctuary, come back to me, it’s so hard to be away”.
From start to finish Coxon has really come into his own on this record. This album leans more to the folksy side of his catalogue, think ‘Kiss Of Morning’, rather than the powerpop of his last two albums, ‘Happiness In Magazines’ and ‘Love Travels At Illegal Speeds’ but it really is all the better for it. The Spinning Top is Coxon’s finest hour.
Alan Souter
