Gavin Rossdale opens his heart but occasionally closes his ears on mixed 10th Bush album.
“Sometimes I fuck up,” Gavin Rossdale confided to K! last month, admittedly while discussing the technical aspects of making a record, though it could just as easily apply to his non-musical life – and ours, too. We are all flawed and works in progress, though we don’t all have a multi-platinum rock band with which to explore those frailties. Gavin does – and he’s right to call I Beat Loneliness Bush’s most personal offering yet, given its tussles with life’s challenges and the death of his mother. But it isn't always his best or most vital work.
That’s because vitality is in the ear of the beholder – and what makes a record vital to its creator doesn’t necessarily translate to its listener. And so it proves here. Opening track Scars is like a microcosm for the record it introduces, reflecting upon a lifetime of regretful experiences that have left their mark, physically and mentally, all set to a pulsing industrial groove. The title-track, meanwhile, finds Gavin in defiant form, striving for the impossible, given that vanquishing loneliness is akin to conquering the sky or the internet, though these big ambitions are matched by the scale and persuasiveness of the riffery.
The problem is that things aren’t always as compelling or adventurous, musically speaking, as Gavin’s soul-baring confessions. They are big canvases, no question, but they’re occasionally listless, and sometimes even hookless. In those instances, Gavin’s lyrics and the sultry purr carry things.
Thankfully, the likes of The Land Of Milk And Honey, 60 Ways To Forget People and Love Me Till The Pain Fades deliver even-handedly, with words and dynamics working together, but that’s not always the case. Sometimes, as on We Are Of This Earth and Everyone Is Broken, it feels like Gavin is so enamoured with the sonics that he’s happy for them just to thrum away idly, not taking the listener anywhere.
As I Beat Loneliness nears its end, things take an upturn with a trio of tracks – Don’t Be Afraid, Footsteps In The Sand, Rebel With A Cause – that offer a sparseness, refinement and urgency you wish Gavin had employed to a greater extent. But the Bush frontman has always bucked the trend. He is, after all, the man who released a grunge record (Sixteen Stone) to great success at the very point when grunge had been declared dead and people were trading plaid shirts for parkas with the arrival of Britpop.
Those instincts have served Gavin well over the years. Now, however, you sense his overwhelming desire for catharsis through creation may have impeded his editing abilities, leaving him unable to separate wheat from chaff. That’s a shame, because at its best, I Beat Loneliness is revelatory. Elsewhere, sadly, it’s rote. Gavin may claim to have beaten loneliness, but he’s been thwarted by his own ambitions.
Verdict: 3/5
For fans of: Seether, Alice In Chains, Filter
I Beat Loneliness is due out on July 18 via earMUSIC. Catch Bush supporting Volbeat in the UK later this year – get your tickets now.
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