Music in a Foreign Language
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Acoustic richness sways gently on Lloyd Cole’s seventh solo album. The candlelight warmth and literate turns of phrase work together like soothing embraces—not embraces of love, more like those to ease pain. And Cole’s sense of songwriting gives these songs and tilted lullabies purposeful juxtaposition and staying power. The gently rising piano ostinato on the drop-dead gorgeous “Late Night, Early Town” only deepens the regret of a life that’s forever middlebrow; the languid lap steel on “No More Love Songs” caresses a deadened soul (“Rather than you, she said, I prefer solitude”); amid dreamy nostalgia there’s still no hope for the protagonist in “My Other Life.” The theme here is disconnection, but there’s always a broken heart beating under it all—it’s about hitting a point in life where what’s new is never as good as what’s old, even the very idea of love. It’s no wonder that the cover of Nick Cave’s “People Ain’t No Good” fits perfectly here, on an album that was one of 2003’s best.
