This is Neneh Cherry’s first solo album for eighteen years, a lifetime in pop music – but perhaps that’s why she has come back sounding like nothing else on earth. It helps enormously that Kieran Hebden (Four Tet) is the producer, too, alongside the involvement of RocketNumberNine. They have come up with a huge range of analogue and digital backdrops that complement Cherry’s voice perfectly. It’s the voice that carries the album high – as to borrow Cherry’s first album title, it’s raw like sushi. She never flinches from tackling a number of personal and political issues, with the production sometimes clearing the decks completely so that she is right up close and very personal. The title track is uncompromising, declaring ‘he is my victim, he is my saviour’ before baring its teeth in the chorus, while ‘Naked’ is similarly revealing. There are some incredibly catchy lyrical sound bites, such as the ones on ‘Spit Three Times’, some fragile songs such as the cut glass ‘422’, and a bass-led monster or two, led by ‘Weightless’. Yet if you have to hear one track to get a good idea of the album make it ‘Cynical’, a free form percussion and bass workout accompanying more piercing vocal insights. Throughout the album the feeling persists that we are eavesdropping in the studio itself, sitting in the corner as Hebden encourages Cherry to bare her soul. That she does with such intensity means we already have one of the albums of the year on our hands.
5 out of 5
Reviewed By Ben Hogwood
