Pleased To Meet You

Brian Eno’s influence on Pleased To Meet You is probably more obvious than on previous working holidays with James. Album opener, ‘Space’ starts with ambient keyboard noodling that has the bald one’s mark all over it, before Tim Booth’s heavily doctored vocals float in from the ether, frighteningly reminiscent of the episode of The Simpsons where Homer mistakes a loved-up Mr Burns for an alien. The song then turns completely on its head with the addition of a chorus straight out of Greek tragedy, which you know shouldn’t work at all, and yet there is something compellingly addictive about it.

OK, so there are signs of wear and tear: Booth’s falsetto for the verses of ‘Falling Down’; the pseudo-profound lyrics of the otherwise excellent ‘The Shining’; and the Erasure-lite of ‘Gaudi’. But for a collective who have clocked up more airmiles over the course of almost two decades than your average long-haul pilot in an entire career, James are still remarkably robust.

‘Falling Down’ is a first cousin (albeit the poorer relation) to That Petrol Emotion’s ‘Sensitize’. ‘Junkie’ drifts in on surprisingly elegant, trance-inducing wings. The title track starts out fragile and sparse, but still manages to work itself into a burly, strapping finale. ‘Senorita’ has Booth coming on like vintage Dave Couse, and proves James can still lash out an anthemic chorus when the mood takes them.