Jarvis Cocker : 'Further Complications'
Jarvis shows us it's great to grow old disgracefully with his latest album.
Remember the Nineties? Great wasn't it? Cool Britannia, New Labour promising us all a revolution and Jurassic Park. To top it all we had Britpop, great bands producing cracking music. Jarvis Cocker was at the forefront of it all with Pulp, singing about the Common People, the Mis-shapes and sleeping with your wife. Magic.
Well it's nearly the end of the Naughties now and all that's gone down the shitter. We've got no money and no jobs. New Labour turned out to be dodgy shysters. Iggy Pop is selling car insurance. The Nineties are over. Get over it. Jarvis Cocker has and the result is and album with a contemporary Britrock sound over which Jarvis drapes his filthy lyrical cunnilingus.
Further Complications is Jarvis' second solo album following 2006's The Jarvis Cocker Record. Jarvis' first album was a confident first step into the solo realm and found Jarvis in a largely reflective mood about his age, life and the world around him. It was an album of glossily-produced pop combined with Jarvis' ever-keen wit and lyricism but the overall feel (with the exception of bonus track 'Running the World') was Jarvis Cocker had mellowed and was accepting middle-age with grace and decorum.
Further Complications is by comparison a leather jacket wearing, sports car-driving cradle snatcher of an album. "I met her in the museum of paleontology/And I make no bones about it/I said if you wish to study dinosaurs/I know a specimen whose interest is undoubted" he drawls in the opening of 'Leftovers'. Jarvis is on top lyrical form throughout the album as the frustrated older man chasing skirt wherever he sees it, swapping the Valium for the Viagra and doing what he does best, being utterly filthy. You're left in no doubt to his intentions by the fantastically morally bankrupt 'I Never Said I Was Deep' as he proclaims "I'm not looking for a relationship, just a willing receptacle". Who needs youth and good looks when you've got lines like that? Phwoar!
Jarvis' rebooted libido is accompanied by a rebooted sound for the singer. Producer Paul Albini, who has worked with Nirvana and Pixies, has helped craft an album with a far rockier tone than anything Jarvis has produced so far. The album is chock full of distortion pedals, thudding rhythms and stripped-back rock arrangements. The song 'Angela' is perhaps the purest representation of this rock revitalisation with its simple driving riff, accompanying hand-claps and anthemic chorus. Title track 'Further Complications' is similarly conceived with thudding bass and cock-rocking guitars. Throughout the album different styles of rock are appropriated, from the metal influences in 'Fuckingsong' to the post-Punk and sax sounds of 'Homewrecker' and the cracking 'Caucasian Blues' where The Hives meet The Stones while Jarvis tells you to "find a good woman/and then you fuck her 'til your hair falls out". This new, very modern sound combines perfectly with Jarvis' lyrics about being older and his lusty ambitions; the urgency and relevance of the sound clashing with the sense of irrelevance and the defunct in the lyrics whilst the simple riff and rhythm drive encapsulate a Buzzcock-esque surge of hormones and frustration. It's so good in fact that Jarvis takes a backseat on 'Pilchard' and lets his band do the talking, a big thing for a singer known for being able to seduce your girlfriend via your car stereo.
It's not all rocking with your cock out though, 'Leftovers' and 'I Never Said I Was Deep' are more languid and seductive tone, befitting as its here where Jarvis' lyrics are at their most outspokenly randy. Also standing apart are the last two tracks, 'Slush' and 'You're in My Eyes' (Discosong). The first is a gorgeous, sweeping love song with echoing guitars and ethereal choirs which provides a refreshing contrast to the glorious smut of the majority of the album and is reminiscent of Jarvis' debut solo work. The second is more of a curio, similar in tone to 'Slush' but based upon samples of well-known disco classics. It is perhaps the album's weakest moment, a great track in it's own right but a bit too divorced from the overall feel of the album not to feel like it's just been tacked on to the end.
Further Complications sees Jarvis Cocker continuing to present himself as a superb solo artist, capable of producing an album with a sound that is as exciting and attention grabbing as the most cutting-edge indie bands out there whilst retaining the wit, lyrical flair and downright filthiness that his fans expect from their cuckolder-in-chief. Yes he's a dirty old man now but we still love him. Now go out and buy this album and listen to it while smoking, drinking gin and leering at nubile young hotties. You might just forget everything is shit. Or just remember that its always been that way. Now how about you let me get you a drink young lady...?
Words: Harvey Ovenden
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Reply #1 on : Tue August 03, 2010, 16:10:36