Well, an extraordinary album by a melodic genius? No, not quite. 'The Age Of Adz' is insane. But 'I Walked' and 'Too Much' are outstanding, genuinely innovative pop songs, managing to be emotionally involving while splicing up choppy beats and guiding complex, swooning swells of sound to a conflicted mass. Afterwards we're in at the deep end. The rest is brave, daringly off-kilter, grandiose and sometimes exhausting. His voice can feel constrained under the weight of self-invented, revolving Celtic-
prog-soul-gospel hybrids. Crammed production skills frequently overshadow his potentially remarkable songwriting. At opposite ends, 'Futile Devices' is delicacy itself, '
Impossible Soul,' however, chants out an astral-Armageddon hymn on Sesame Street. Warning; Auto-Tune slapstick also occurs. From this gleefully mad, chirpy alienation there emerges a sweet folk coda. Verging on the totally overblown, always wilfully
peculiar, it'll take time to savour all this restless vigour, riotous devotion and baffling intensity. The key might be that it's all an elaborate fantasy. I was uncertain initially, about the whole enterprise, but now I'm finding it sort of inspired. No brainwashing took place, just a realisation; he's actually mapping out new territories for himself, and if there are faults, well, so be it, because how many contemporary musical artists, in the context of songform, are taking these kind of risks?
