SPLIT SECONDS

Split Seconds is Phil Miller's followup to Cutting Both Ways, and just like that release it's split between band tracks performed with In Cahoots and more intimate pieces recorded with the help of Dave Stewart and Barbara Gaskin, who'd been forging their own skewed pop sound since the disintegration of National Health.

At its best, it's more of the same; however, there are a few too many moments where the songwriting is thin enough that the thin 1980s production standards really show, and they have dated quite poorly. (I'd be interested if anyone knows just why so many Canterbury artists in particular seemed to come unstuck in the production department in the 1980s.) This feels, in fact, like an album consisting of off-cuts from Cutting Both Ways, and whilst that one manages to overcome the difficulties of the era, this one can't quite escape their gravity well. As it turns out, one course of 1980s In Cahoots is enough for me - I can't manage seconds, even if I split 'em.