THIN AIR

After a series of good solo and VDGG albums, Thin Air is another venture into dreariness. There is nothing horribly bad about it, but nothing good either. Or wait, there is really something wrong with it: you can play this album as background music and it will pass you by largely unnoticed.

Now Hammill? Background music? No, that would really be the last thing you would want from a Hammill album and that is the main reason why it is such a disappointment.

Both the arrangements and vocals stay pretty much unchanged for the entire course of the album. There's nothing wrong with a song like Your Face on the Street but it is entirely indistinguishable from the one before or after it. Wrong Way Round is supposed to balance things out with an instrumental piece but it is too uninspired to accomplish anything.

If you want this review to get as dreary as the album then I would just need to continue repeating that each of the following tracks are as faceless and unobtrusive as you never had dreamed a Hammill album would be.

The concluding The Top Of The World Club is a really good song but after the monotonous 40 minutes that preceded it, it entirely loses its potential impact.

Two very Thin stars.