Nearly through the five decades first time round, and here we are in the twenty-first century.
Album title: Returning Jesus
Artist: No-Man
Nationality: English
Year: 2001
Chronology: 4
The Trollheart Factor: 3
Track Listing: Only Rain/No Defence/Close Your Eyes/Carolina Skeletons/Outside the Machine/Returning Jesus/Slow it All Down/Lighthouse/All That You Are
Comments: While I may not be totally on board yet with Porcupine Tree’s discography, I always have time for Steven Wilson. Some of his projects aren’t so great (Storm Corrosion) but more often than not they hit the mark, occasionally exceed it. Throw in one of my favourite vocalists and you have a recipe for, if not guaranteed success, then at least expected. I’ve loved Tim Bowness’s work on Memories of Machines, and his own solo stuff as well as NoSound and White Willow, and I find he and Wilson work well together. The thing about a No-Man album is you usually can’t predict what you’re going to get.
Here, we have a beautiful aching cello-driven ballad opening the album, with Bowness’s unique soulful vocal seeming to almost bleed emotion all over “Only Rain” - oh, okay: sounded very like cello but none is shown in the credits, so I guess it must be synthesised - then there’s brass, hard electric guitar, the bulk of the seven-minutes plus the song runs for instrumental, quite ambient, while “No Defence” sounds like Marillion’s “Born to Run” from
Radiation with a lovely lazy slow blues rhythm and what sounds like slide guitar and some truly awesome smoky sax. Tribal drums then open “Close Your Eyes”, soft and sort of breathy in their way, deep organ almost in the background, while it’s piano that drives “Carolina Skeletons”, with an almost folky/country feel to it, and “Outside the Machine” has indeed a kind of metallic, electronic, mechanical sound.
Still, you’ll never or at least hardly ever hear No-Man rocking out; Bowness is a gentle, relaxed singer and I don’t think I’ve ever heard him break a sweat, so to speak. Ah. Little confused now. The track should be the title one, and is shown as such, but the lyric is “Slow it All Down”, which is supposed to be the next track. Could they have become somehow transposed? This one at any rate lives up to its name, a sound like someone tapping on metal pipes the only real percussion I can hear, soft guitar and synth and the soothing sound of Bowness’s voice, and, well if that is “Returning Jesus” I can’t say, as it’s an instrumental on mostly brass, but I guess given the lyric of the other one they must somehow have got it arse-about-face on Spotify. Two very good songs nevertheless.
That brings us to “Lighthouse”, and at this point I’m not at all surprised to find it’s another slow track, strong organ underpinning the tune, with a very seventies Genesis feel, and then a kind of reprise of the melody from “No Defence” as we end on “All That You Are”, some powerful warbling keyboard and a really nice guitar motif, passionate vocal from Tim, a fitting closer.
Track(s) I liked: Oh, everything
Track(s) I didn't like: Nary a one
One standout: Hard to pick one out
One rotten apple: Nah
Overall impression: I tend to view No-Man more as a Bowness than a Wilson vehicle, but as I said they work well together, and this is just another example of two men at the top of their respective games teaming up to record something that is more than the sum of their parts. Highly recommended.
Rating: 9.8/10
Future Plan: Must hear their other albums and I have a hankering to hear more of Tim Bowness’s solo material.