Faithless ‘Outrospective’
March 25th, 2002 by freddie96
FAITHLESS
Outrospective
Cheeky
Whatever else Faithless do in their careers, the world will always be grateful for that moment halfway through their debut album when the layers of rumbling bass, sweeping synths and teasing beats suddenly stop. Maxi’s earnest, arrogant lips spit five words: ‘I can’t get no sleep’, and then that riff, those unfeasibly glorious, heartstopping chords, step majestically into the void. They are quite possibly the greatest few bars of any dance tune ever recorded.
It is unlikely that Faithless will ever equal ‘Insomnia’, let alone surpass it. And I’m beginning to wish they would stop trying. ‘Outrospective’, their third album, is to all intents and purposes the second remake of Reverence. It is to Faithless’s credit that they are so immediately distinctive, but there is just the danger that what was once a winning formula will begin to sound like a gimmick.
This is not to say Faithless are a one-trick circus. There is an impressive range of mood and genre on ‘Outrospective’. ‘Muhammad Ali’ is moulded into a modern groove, Avalanches-style, from a mighty Atlantic soul sample. ‘Crazy English Summer’ is a folk-tinged ballad given rare sensitivity by Zoe Johnston’s fine vocals, while the obligatory Dido contribution on ‘One Step Too Far’ underlines just how feeble her own album actually is. ‘Not Enuff Love’, strongly reminiscent of Rollo’s side-project Dusted, manages to be genuinely affecting despite a well-intentioned but twee lyric about homelessness, the analytical depth of which never rises above Mel C’s immortal ‘I can’t live without my phone when you don’t even have a home.’
For all that, the mood of the album is dominated by ‘Insomnia’ revisited. Top three single ‘We Come 1′ is effectively the same song with the notes in a slightly different order, and ‘Tarantula’ is the same thing speeded up a couple of bpm. Yes, it does sound great, ‘Tarantula’ in particular would bring the house down at any party in the land, but I can’t help thinking that the band still have so much more to offer us than recreations of past
glories.
I feel a little like my mother must have felt after my dad bought her an identical dress on three birthdays in a row. When she pointed out the fact, he said: ‘But I thought you liked it?’ AF
