2010 Retrospect: Adam Green – ‘Minor Love’

Adam Green – ‘Minor Love’

 
(Rough Trade/ Remote Control)

 
Every now and again an artist will release an album which is clearly not within their particular comfort zone. Adam Green has been consistently inconsistent when it comes to his back catalogue. Previously of Mouldy Peaches fame and with five solo albums under his belt to boot, normally he jokes and laughs his way through albums – there’s usually a lot of ‘filler’. And so it is with his new album Minor Love that he picks up his guitar once more and surprisingly decides to tread a different path. Whilst maintaining all previously established charm and quirkiness, he heads for the path of the serious, coherent album. This is unknown territory for him but he instantly makes it his own.

 
Opener ‘Breaking Locks’ picks up exactly where 2008’s Sixes & Sevens left off. “I’ve been too awful to ever be thoughtful, to ever be nice,” he crows in his Leonard Cohen-meets-Jimmy Morrison swagger. The plodding ‘Give Them A Token’ quickly follows and it’s clear to see that Mr. Green is taking this a lot more seriously this time out whilst impressively staying true to his lo-fi, anti-folk ethos.

 
The album finally takes a reluctant step up with tracks ‘Buddy Bradley’, ‘Castles & Tassels’ and the album’s flagship track ‘Boss Inside’. It is in this track that he finally seems to bring it all together – the recent split from his wife, the coherency he’s never previously had, the openness and ultimately the ability he has to make a truly classic album. Unfortunately, one swallow does not make a summer. This isn’t his classic, complete album although it is the best he’s got for now and definitely a step in the right direction. And one feels it’s a precursor to the greatness, and dare I say genius, that lies beneath the DIY punk spirit of a poet lost.