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Back to: Archive · 2006 'Love Travels At Illegal Speeds' reviewed by Phil Harrison. From Time Out London, 8-15 March 2006. As time goes by, it becomes increasingly hard to credit the fact that Graham Coxon was once one of the nation's biggest pop stars. A fish out of water among the Loaded lovelies and ironic laddishness of Blur's 'Country House'-era commercial zenith perhaps, but part of it nonetheless. He always looked as if he wished he were somewhere else, though, and pretty soon, he was. At first, he took his mockney pals with him, dragging them into the comparatively deep left-field for their next and best album, 'Blur'. But eventually, he was out of the band altogether and making hesitant, tremulously lo-fi and occasionally very beautiful steps towards a convincing solo career. Ironically, though, it's always been fairly easy to see why, for all his apparent reluctance, he ended up a rabbit in celebrity's headlights. All of his solo albums have contained moments of casual, almost effortless pop brilliance. The boy can't help it. And he's done it again here, most notably on the album's blistering punk-pop opener, 'Standing On My Own Again', but more subtly on the gentle, melancholy likes of 'Just A State Of Mind' and 'Don't Believe Anything I Say'. There's also a sense that he's broadened his musical palette somewhat. The flute flourishes that decorate 'Flights To The Sea (Lovely Rain)', for example, lend it a dreamy, pastoral air reminiscent of Van Morrison's 'Astral Weeks'. However, while Coxon's music has become more polished and assured with each album, lyrically, things are more fraught and unstable than ever. At times, 'Love Travels At Illegal Speeds' feels like an almost forensic dissection of romantic disappointment with jealousy, betrayal, loneliness and longing picked over in occasionally uncomfortable detail. The uniformly excellent tunes make it a bracing rather than gruelling ride but even so, he seems no nearer to being at peace now than he was during his years of reluctant pop stardom. His loss is our gain. Rating: 4 out of 6. |