Richard Ashcroft and the United Nations of Sound
United Nations of Sound
(EMI)
Given Richard Ashcroft’s track record as solo artist and Verve frontman, there’s every reason to look past the awkward name of his latest venture. Besides, Ashcroft is working with a distinct cast of collaborators: hip hop producer No ID (Jay-Z, Common), big-time strings arranger Benjamin Wright, Motown engineer Reggie Dozier, Mary J. Blige guitarist Steve Wyreman, and a rhythm section of soul musicians from Brooklyn. The prospect of Ashcroft’s voice against nodding beats and buttery strings would seem to spell either an album of ‘Bitter Sweet Symphony’ redux or an updated fusion of the British rock and black influences heard on Primal Scream’s game-changing Screamedelica. Instead, United Nations of Sound is an uneven, indulgent collection further marred by greeting-card sentiment.
We begin with ‘Are You Ready’, a six-minute track that buries its lazy beat and sees Ashcroft reference Babylon and plead to “sweet Jesus” over a busy swell of strings-swept rock that sounds like the Stones more with every guitar and piano lick. Most of this album hopes for a grandeur somewhere between ‘Sympathy for the Devil’ and ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’. But Ashcroft’s lyrics are difficult to stomach, whether it’s the line “The universal language is music / Are you tuning in?” on the abysmal ‘America’ or the painful couplet that opens ‘Born Again’: “Cancel my subscription to the resurrection / Love is the law / Pure perfection.” The latter is like arena gospel, with Ashcroft strutting his messiah complex and reminding us – as he does throughout the album – that we’re all in this together. Referencing the Verve hit ‘The Drugs Don’t Work’ in passing, the preachy ‘This Thing Called Life’ goes in for more hack philosophy. The Bon Jovi-worthy power ballad ‘She Brings Me The Music’ rushes its inevitable climax, while ‘Royal Highness’ opens with a Motown hook and canned beat before piling on conflicting sounds. It’s like Sugar Ray meets Smokey Robinson.
That’s half the album right there: half-baked and overblown. Elsewhere, Ashcroft does considerably less harm with the passable rock-soul of ‘Glory’ and flowery, funk-indebted pop of ‘Good Loving’. ‘Beatitude’ is hampered by rap-style braggadocio but at least it carries some welcome swagger musically. Ashcroft then embraces the sultry R&B of ‘Life Can Be So Beautiful’ with unreal falsetto; it’s cheesy and yet he manages to disappear into the song for once. The closing ‘Let My Soul Rest’ has some of the best string arrangements here and goes a way towards making up for lyrics that feel like bargain-basement, drug-free Spiritualized. Most surprising is ‘How Deep Is Your Man’, a scratched-raw experiment pairing hip hop and blues. There’s still a flurry of Stones-ish guitar at the end, but an album of songs like this would have been a gripping bit of entertainment.
As is, United Nations of Sound makes big airs about moving beyond genre but really just borrows passing bits of everything on the way to MOR rock-star posturing. It suffers especially in comparison to Wake Up the Nation, the recent solo album by another British rock legend, Paul Weller. That album is wiry, schizophrenic, immediate, and genuinely hungry for new ideas. Ashcroft should check it out.
Doug Wallen