With a title like
Simple Pleasure
and songs like the disarmingly up-tempo opener
"Can We Start Again?,"
at first listen
Tindersticks
' fourth proper album seems buoyed by a guarded optimism totally absent from previous outings; dig deeper, however, and it's all a come-on -- frontman
Stuart Staples
still inhabits a netherworld where nothing is ever simple, pleasure is an illusion, and starting again merely means making the same mistakes yet one more time. Nothing truly changes, which has been
' point all along, of course -- hopes are still meant to be dashed and hearts still meant to be broken, and
is neither the time nor the place to begin pretending otherwise.
Staples
' songs remain the very essence of romantic despair, stunning in their funereal beauty and devastating in their tormented desperation; likewise, much of the record prowls familiar musical ground, although
"Before You Close Your Eyes,"
"I Know That Loving,"
and the closing
"CF GF"
all draw heavily on long-simmering
soul
and
gospel
influences, while the disc's highlight, the achingly gorgeous
"If You're Looking for a Way Out,"
transforms
Odyssey
's 1980
disco
hit into a
ballad
of surprising tenderness. That same tenderness colors much of
, in fact, making it not only
' most giving record, but also their most poignant, revealing a vulnerability even the bravest face can't mask. ~ Jason Ankeny