On what is his sixth outing, Minor Love, Adam Green shows how far he’s travelled from his anarcho-folk Moldy Peaches days. Recorded in the aftermath of his marriage break-up, the album has Green, symbolically perhaps, playing most of the instruments. However, the ghosts of Richard Hawley, Nick Cave and Lou Reed in Transformer mode hover in the corner.
It opens with ‘Breaking Locks’, a sparse production that serves as an exercise in self-immolation and maps out the direction for what follows.
For ‘Give Them A Token’ he adds drums, but its casual, almost mawkish m-o-r feel actually outcheeses Neil Hannon. ‘Don’t Call Me Uncle’ waves at Devendra Banhart and makes for fine fingerpickin’ folk, while the weightier ‘What Makes Him So Bad’ is almost Spectoresque by comparison. The laid-back ‘Stadium Soul’ dabbles in synths, with an unsettling innocence in its lyrical style. ‘Boss Inside’ is standard indie rock fare, which being cruel you might rate as grade-c Cave. But ‘Buddy Bradley’ is throwaway nonchalant, and the teeth-rattling edge to ‘Oh Shucks’ suggests Green might indeed have a life apres-marriage.
Green’s vocal style won’t appeal to everybody, with the tendency to mumble adding nothing to the effect. It’s not easy to find the earworm potential of any specific tracks, but the whole is better than the sum of its parts.
KEY TRACK: ‘BREAKING LOCKS’