Review:
“Chris Difford is a man of many parts, and all of them are working. In 2008, one of England’s great pop lyricists of the past 30 years is ready for the solo spotlight again.” AZ “Wry as ever, [he] dubbed his second solo album The Last Temptation of Chris – a sly play on words that is certainly characteristic of this master lyricist.” STE Temptation “expands on [the] delightfully intimate writing style” AZ of “his widely admired solo debut of late 2002, I Didn’t Get Where I Am.” AZ
This “is the perfect Sunday morning record. You wake up early, or maybe a little late, and probably a bit groggy from the night before. You…start up the coffee, grab a bagel, snatch the paper.” MS “There’s a hint of rain in the air, the Washington talk shows are too depressing, and you’d like to go back to bed.” MS Instead, “you flip through the CD racks for the soundtrack to your A.M. Something engaging, but not too harsh. Something that’s comfortable without being too familiar. Music that will tickle your ears, but never get caught in the wax.” MS This is “relaxed music, never calling attention to itself and always focusing attention on Difford’s remarkably precise short stories and vignettes, capturing the feel of forgotten memories and places remembered.” STE “The entire record…is a warm, low-key affair, one that feels well-worn and lived in.” STE
“Difford is best known as one half of the Squeeze songwriting team along with Glenn Tilbrook. It’s easy to hear some familiar Squeeze lyrical rhythms in…Temptation” MS but Difford “only gets subtler and sharper as the years go by.” STE This is “an outstanding showcase for a songwriting talent reaching new levels of maturity.” AZ Difford’s “themes have moved far beyond the youthful tales of romance won and lost in such songs as ‘Up the Junction’ and ‘Is That Love?’” MS and on to themes such as “absent fathers, flabby middles, faded dreams and socks.” JC “This is a very sentimental, nostalgic record, longing for such images of the past as a mother’s handbag, kids playing outside the pub on a Sunday, and a pair of aging queens gossiping their way through the days.” MS
“The songs Difford penned with…Tilbrook …told you what it was like to be old, fat, lonely and washed up. They were filled with characters that hung on with nicotine-stained fingertips to lives that seemed all the more precious for their fragility. Over the years, he has slowly grown into the music he has always made until he fits with it so smoothly, so well, that you’ll forget it might have seemed incongruous, a quarter of a century ago, to see men in their mid-20s dripping with a world-weariness far beyond their years.” JC
This time, Difford works with “another master craftsman, Boo Hewerdine, who co-wrote and produced the album” AZ and is “the man behind such enduring songs as the Bible’s ‘Graceland’ and ‘Honey Be Good’ and his own ‘Patience of Angels,’ covered by Eddi Reader.” STE Difford said of working with Hewerdine, “‘Thankfully I met Boo and he guided me, he writes such beautiful melodies. He used to come to my house every day with a different batch of melodies, and before we knew where we were, we had an album. It s lovely to create something as intimate and warm as this with someone like Boo.’” AZ
The result is a range of songs hitting on issues such as “reversing a vasectomy on the aptly-titled Reverso.” STE “Broken Family floats reminiscences of divorce's impact on a family over a wheeling, infectious guitar riff.” MS “Battersea Boys is a particular triumph; adapted from a tale told to Difford at an old folks’ home, it’s a sentimental reminiscence of two brothers and their simple journeys through life. Deceptively basic on the surface, but infused with stirring nostalgia and the kind of lilting melody that's tailor-made for drunken crooning when out getting teary-eyed with the old gang.” MS
“There's something undeniable about Difford’s singing voice; he’s not a singer per se, although he hits his notes just fine. He’s more of a melodic storyteller, casual and loose even when the tempo picks up and the tunes start to move, as on On My Own I’m Never Bored and Fat as a Fiddle. It gives the record just the right relaxed, conversational feel; this is music that could just as easily be taking place in your living room as it could be coming out of your stereo speakers.” MS
“While The Last Temptation isn’t quite immediate – it’s only upon repeated listens that it’s possible to appreciate the level of craft, particularly in Difford’s words but also in Hewerdine’s sympathetic music – it’s also welcoming, easing a listener into its small, precisely created world, one where the stories get better the more that they are heard.” STE “They’re as comfortable as” JC “an old pair of jeans you wear like a second skin; the crook of your spouse's arm where your head fits just right” MS or “the slippers you suspect the couple at the heart of Good Life are wearing.” JC
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