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Album: Richard Ashcroft

Human Conditions, Hut

Andy Gill
Friday 18 October 2002 00:00 BST
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Compared to the emotional updraft of fatherhood that coursed through Alone with Everybody, Richard Ashcroft reverts, on Human Conditions, to the more depressive, internalised cast of his work with The Verve. "How do we leave the wreckage of our lives/ How do you leave the past out in the night?" he enquires in "God in the Numbers", and it's as if he's struggling to hold off demons of some sort from insinuating themselves back into his future. Always one to wear his heart on his sleeve, in the single "Check the Meaning", Ashcroft strains to get "my mind meditating on love" when "paranoia the destroyer comes knocking on my door", while he slips closer to maundering introspection in "Running Away", warning, "There's a killer in me and a killer in you/ A little talent, but a lot would do". Solace comes in various forms, notably drugs'n'booze ("Buy it in Bottles") and religion – the latter surfacing in the drab pseudo-gospel of "Lord I've Been Trying" and the invocation "Jesus Christ buy us some time" at the end of "Check the Meaning". Musically, the most significant change from Alone with Everybody is the absence of pedal-steel guitarist BJ Cole, and the appearance of the percussionist Talvin Singh, whose rattling tabla are rather ill-matched with the declamatory heavy rock of tracks such as "Bright Lights". The result is still widescreen, epic rock, but with less warmth and intrigue.

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