Other People's lives



Every time a weedy young Englishman turns his frustration at his surroundings into a pop narrative he follows the trail blazed by Ray Davies. His position as one of pop’s most influential songwriters is now unassailable, so any new material from the Kinks’ thoughtful mastermind warrants attention.

The 62-year-old Davies is at pains to let us know that he takes this, his first proper solo album and first collection of original songs since the early 1990s, very seriously indeed. The epic sleevenotes offer detailed explanations of the reason behind each song. How many songwriters display such concern that their work be interpreted correctly? The Kinks may have been inactive since 1994, but Davies has kept his eyes and ears open. The title track attacks a media that encourages us all to become voyeurs, while Stand Up Comic is the predictable music-hall number, enlivened by Dylan Howe’s imaginative drumming, on which Davies berates today’s lack of civility. Next Door Neighbour, a singalong of suburban secrets, is a familiar update on Davies’s classic tunes of Englishness.

The best songs here, though, look beyond the parochial. The Tourist, a languid attack on those who travel and see nothing (“everywhere I go I say I want to make it my home”), enlivened by sudden outbreaks of instrumental violence, was inspired by Davies’s impressions of New Orleans. He was based in the city when he was stabbed during a street robbery in 2004 — imagine Blur’s Girls and Boys for jaded grown-ups. All She Wrote, built around a chunky acoustic riff and some clever key changes, is nearly as good. Davies admits that the scarily prescient After the Fall, written before the assault, is lacking his brother’s usual contribution, while The Getaway, also written in Louisiana and sung in a curious Muswell Hillbilly accent, is a western lament that could have featured on a 1960s Gene Clark record.

Was it worth the wait? Yes. Davies is making lively and engaged music that does not detract from his own myth. Long-time fans should not be disappointed, while the merely curious might be pleasantly surprised. But can Davies make another before he reaches 70?

STEVE JELBERT