Jane's Addiction - The Great Escape Artist
- Oct 21, 2011
After eight years out of the game, Jane's Addiction's fourth album finds the Los Angeles fourpiece in a surprisingly contemplative mood, as if they feel absolutely no pressure to make up for lost time. On 'The Great Escape Artist' you might have expected to hear Perry Farrell and co. sounding full of energy, but sadly this is not the case. Unlike the swaggering bombast of 2003's 'Strays', this collection of ten tracks has an alarmingly lackadaisical quality about it, which can either be read as great assurance or simply the casual nonchalance of a band only too happy to preach to the converted.
Alongside the three ever-present members of the band, this album features the basslines of TV On The Radio's Dave Sitek (who had a hand in the songwriting) and the sleek production values of Rich Costley (Franz Ferdinand and Interpol). In interviews, the band have namechecked several prog-rock influences such as Radiohead, Muse and even Pink Floyd, but that is misleading to the extent of being almost criminal.
The proud posturing of the opening track 'Underground' stakes a claim for the band's lasting grassroots relevance, with Farrell plainly stating: "I'll never give up the underground." The ferocity of their madcap breakthrough single 'Stop' is not in evidence here though and it's hard to shake the feeling that drummer Stephen Perkins never really gets out of second gear throughout the entire album. It's probably better to describe this as head-nodding, rather than head-banging music, and this is never truer than during the plodding 'Curiosity Kills', which rather unspectacularly leads into the album's first single.
With a carefully built intro and a very catchy chorus, 'Irresistible Force' is by no means a weak song, but it certainly doesn't match up to the effusive flair of 'Just Because', the previous album's lead-off release. It's at this point that Jane's Addiction seem to rather abruptly run out of ideas, with only Dave Navarro's idiosyncratic guitar solos offering anything else to write home about for the next 20 minutes or so.
As the album draws to a conclusion, 'Broken People' moves things towards the mellower end of the scale, but doesn't offer enough intimacy to truly draw you in before ending abruptly. Contrastingly, the closing track 'Words Right Out Of My Mouth' is a timely reminder of why Jane's Addiction got where they are in the first place. This up-tempo effort delivers the youthful verve that seems to have been forgotten during the rest of the album and begs the question – why didn't they include more tracks like this?
After Jane's Addiction's last-minute, illness-related withdrawal from playing at the Reading and Leeds festivals in August, this record seems like another chance sadly missed. They simply can't afford to wait another eight years to improve on this distinctly disappointing display.
4/10
@ChrisJeff, who blogs at http://chrisjefferies.co.uk/
