THE CHAMELEONS: THIS NEVER ENDING NOW (2002)
1) The Fan And The Bellows; 2)
Tears; 3) Intrigue In Tangiers; 4) Is It Any Wonder?; 5) Seriocity; 6) Swamp
Thing; 7) All Around; 8) Second Skin; 9) Home Is Where The Heart Is; 10) View
From A Hill; 11) Moonage Daydream.
One album can be just an accident, but two
constitute a tendency: I may just be right in my suspicions that The Chameleons
actually did not think much of the production on their original albums
themselves — so here you have another
big bunch of acoustically based re-recordings,
mostly of tunes from the band's «softer» albums, but not necessarily so:
the record opens with ʽThe Fan And The Bellowsʼ, energetically driven forward
by the percussion of the now-returning John Lever, but otherwise completely
dependent on acoustic rhythm and lead guitars. Also, there are two alternate
versions of songs from Why Call It
Anything? (ʽAll Aroundʼ seems to just be an alternate mix of the original;
ʽMiracles And Wondersʼ is genuinely converted to acoustic mode and detached
from its lengthy ambient coda); ʽIs It Any Wonder?ʼ, re-recorded from a rare
original off their 1990 EP Tony Fletched
Walked On Water; and an out-of-the-blue cover of Bowie's ʽMoonage Daydreamʼ
because... because they like David Bowie.
Second time around, though, this is not nearly
as touching as the effort they made with Strip.
The approach is no longer so fresh and unpredictable; more importantly, the
songs themselves were not too good to start with — I mean, ʽView From A Hillʼ
was really just a drawn-out mood piece to finish Script Of The Bridge on a solemn note, and like it or not, it was
one of the few songs where the production, with its multiple layers of
keyboards and guitars, really made sense; here, it is largely reduced to some
interminable chuggy acoustic plunking and light-solemn vocal harmonies that
would fit in better on, say, an AIR album than here. Likewise, the one good
thing that I remembered about ʽSwamp Songʼ was its slightly spooky froggish
guitar croaking; here, it is transformed into acoustic country-blues that is
about as exciting as any similar acoustic number on a Bonnie Raitt or a Sheryl
Crow record.
One song where the acoustic difference really
makes a great difference is ʽSecond Skinʼ, whose formerly distant romantic
electric guitar riff, transposed to the acoustic setting, has gained in volume
and clarity — yet I am not so sure if the new approach is better, because the
distant original was more «spaced-out», reaching out to you like some distant
star, or a comet swooshing by. That spaced-out atmosphere is only reconstructed
by the band at the very end, once they launch into their version of ʽMoonage
Daydreamʼ — still more of a humble tribute to the creator than a daring
reinvention, but with an interesting take on the solo part (no Ronson-esque
alien fireworks, more like a quiet post-rock dissolution of electric current).
Bad news is, ʽMoonage Daydreamʼ alone is still better than all the Chameleons
songs put together, so that on my second listen I could not wait for all that
stuff to end so that Mark Burgess, too, could declare himself an alligator.
Which, to be frank, he never really was.
Considering that The Chameleons broke up once
again soon after this record's release, never reconvened for another big
project in the next fifteen years, and that, as of now, John Lever is dead and
buried, it is a safe bet that This Never
Ending Now has fulfilled its promise and become the last (semi-)original
Chameleons release we will ever see (although Lever and Fielding did make
another album together two years before Lever's demise). A bit sad, since Why Call It Anything? did show promise
and proved that the band members' talents survived into the 21st century; then
again, with all this focus on reinventing their legacy, they might not really
have had it in them to create new material on a regular basis. In any case,
these acoustic albums are a decent last gift for those of their fans who,
together with the band, had outgrown the excesses of Eighties' technophilia
and regained a taste for less synthetic-sounding instrumentation — and,
perhaps, a chance for those of their fans who have not outgrown it... to reconsider and repent.
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