LLOYD COLE THE SOLO YEARS : 2004-06

2004 saw a renewed interest in the career of Lloyd Cole, thanks in part to a decision to briefly reform the Commotions for a select group of gigs to mark the 20th Anniversary of the release of Rattlesnakes as well as the album itself being re-released in a CD deluxe format with the second disc containing demos, concert and radio performances. There was also a cash-in 21-track compilation of singles from the band era and solo career.

As an aside, the gig at Glasgow Barrowlands in 2004 was as joyous and heart-warming a night as I’ve ever had at that particular venue, stretching back what is now 35 years.

The same year saw Lloyd begin the recording of his next solo record although it would take until August 2006 before Antidepressant was released, again on Sanctuary Records. It was a continuation of the successful formula followed on Music In A Foreign Language in that it was mostly one man and his guitar, albeit there’s a grander production and what feels like a larger budget enabling some strings to be superbly utilised, but where the last album had often been quite a dark and sad offering, there was a lot of fine self-deprecating humour on display across the latest offering, none more so than on album opener:-

mp3 : Lloyd Cole – The Young Idealists

There can’t have been anyone who heard when they this, either played live or when they bought the new record, who, wouldn’t have afforded themselves a wry and knowing smile. We might like to think that we still, in our mid 40s, hold the same beliefs and values as we did in our mid 20s, but you can’t ignore or discount the lessons you learn along the way.

It’s a relatively short album clocking in at around the 40 minute mark across 11 tracks, but around a quarter of the record is taken up by two lengthy and very wistful numbers, both of which display Lloyd’s ear for a tune and ability to come up with a lyric that Mr Cohen would have been proud of, especially this:-

mp3 : Lloyd Cole – How Wrong Can You Be?

There’s a very fine review on-line which sums up Antidepressant as “an album of songs about mid-life, its traps, compromises, disappointments, and the hidden delights found in aging. Desire is not absent in these songs, it’s merely channeled differently, and new ones pop up in the gaps where others have either been realized or forgotten.”

An absolute gem of a record and well worth picking up if you don’t already own it.

JC