Although her debut album, 2004's 'Grey Will Fade' brought CHARLOTTE HATHERLEY considerable critical plaudits, she's now officially a 'solo' performer after her amicable departure from Ash and in a way has to prove herself all over again with her second LP, 'The Deep Blue.'
The end results, though, suggest this won't pose too much of a problem. Indeed, Charlotte has done the sensible thing and re-united with 'Grey Will Fade"s key collaborators, producer Eric Drew Feldman (keyboards, bass) and PJ Harvey drummer Rob Ellis and spent most of the summer of 2006 in writing and recording the songs making up 'The Deep Blue' in the depths of rural Italy. During the period, phone calls were also placed to other reliable musical allies such as bassist Toby MacFarlane (Graham Coxon), Tindersticks' brass alumnus Terry Edwards and - most intriguingly - XTC singer/ songwriter Andy Partridge, but 'The Deep Blue' is still clearly very much the result of Charlotte Hatherley's own vision and a deepening and widening of the talent that confirmed it was flourishing in the light away from its' creator's day job when 'Grey Will Fade' was unleashed on an unsuspecting public.
The first thing that's immediately apparent, though, is that 'The Deep Blue' doesn't have much space for re-runs of the effervescent new wave likes of 'Kim Wilde' and 'Bastardo' and indeed - the excitable recent single 'I Want You To Know' aside - the album is largely devoid of easily digestible quirk-pop nuggets. Yes, there are a few other tunes where the band flirt with both upping the tempo and poppiness in general, but even during these moments (the switchback-defying, Soft Boys-style jumpiness of 'Very Young' and the sumptuous, but resolutely off-kilter 'Love's Young Dream') the band seem intent to take the less-travelled road when confronted by a crossroads signposted 'big chorus ahead'.
Importantly, though, this doesn't mean that 'The Deep Blue' is either devoid of above-average melodic content or depth, because it scores impressively on both fronts when taken overall. It's simply that you have to put in some old fashioned commitment and work with these songs for a while (and not against them) for 'The Deep Blue's lustrous colours to become as gorgeously visual as they ought to be.
This reviewer's advice would be to put the time in, though, because you'll be rewarded if so. Opening track 'Cousteau' might seem like a gentle, scene-setting red herring with its' brace of keyboards, choral vocal wash and elements of The Beach Boys and Lisa Gerrard, but when songs like the floaty atmosphere and trippy basslines of 'Be Thankful' and the Kate Bush-style vocal textures and continuing oceanic imagery of 'Again' flow over you in its' wake then you're beginning to realise that this siren's song is an exotic and intoxicating one that might initially seem strange and remote, but one that you'll inevitably respond positively to.
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Elsewhere, the album delights in setting little sonic booby traps for the listener and invariably you'll be glad you fell into them. 'Wounded Sky' is a good example of this, starting out with rippling guitars and pattering percussion before Ellis's drums hammer in mid-way and take the song to a different plane altogether. 'Roll Over (Let It Go)' is another where you think you've got it pegged as a soothing semi-ballad with strings, until there's a sudden, unexpected change up to fifth and you're jarred out of your comfort zone in an especially exhilarating fashion.
Arguably this writer's favourite tracks, though, are 'Dawn Treader' and the closing 'Siberia'. The former is a slightly chilly and somnambulent co-write with XTC'S Andy Partridge and is almost as furtive and lovely as some of the stuff Partridge submitted with his long-forgotten 'Homo Safari' series. The curious, whimsical lyrics ("From afar, the dawn treader has come/ here to sail us into the shredder once again") will surely delight long-term Partridge watchers and the song itself is beautifully evocative, as is the looming tour-de-force of 'Siberia' where Hatherley, Ellis and Feldman walk the line between upbeat'n'poppy and weird'n'dislocated without seemingly batting a collective eyelid. I could be wrong, but I get an inkling it'll be quite a set-closer on her forthcoming European dates.
'The Deep Blue', then, persuades us to follow our heroine into darker, uncharted waters and follow exotic shoals we may not have seen previously. It's a terrific experience, though, and one that even the uninitiated shouldn't shy away from. Far from succumbing to a watery grave, Charlotte Hatherley's post-Ash career sounds like it may well rise like the proverbial monster from the deep.
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