There was a time when Lloyd Cole, along with his Commotions, inspired anticipation with each new release, and rightly so. Coles cool smooth vocals, supple guitar and smoldering pop songs made him the pouting post-new-wave poster boy for brainy rock n roll.
Cole broke up the Commotions after just three albums, an indication of the creative restlessness that has marked his career ever since. From the half Cole/half Barry White schizoid brilliance of 1991s Dont Get Weird On Me, Babe to the psychedelic lollipop of 1993s Bad Vibes to the return to form of 1995s Love Story, Cole has never stayed in one musical place for very long, preferring to press shuffle and keep things interesting. Thats a quality that wins you fans for bravery and gets you tossed off labels for inconsistency.
Coles new project, The Negatives, is also the name of his new band, featuring the talents of Jill Sobule, a cult star in her own right. The six-year gap since Coles last new album has been taken up with fatherhood and legal wrangling, and his eagerness to get back in the game shows on The Negatives.
Coles hard-won maturity shines on every track here, as he nods in the direction of each phase of his career: the Commotions-like rock of Negative Attitude, the string-laden weeper That Boy, the hooky love dirge Vin Ordinaire, the Beatlesque Im Gone. The Negatives is Coles strongest work in a decade, and shows an artist who may at last be comfortable with himself creatively.
