Album: Tim Booth

Bone, Sanctuary

After James put up the shutters with 2001's Pleased to Meet You, Tim Booth freewheeled for a while, pondering more theatrical avenues (he once won a best newcomer award for his part in a production of Saved).

After James put up the shutters with 2001's Pleased to Meet You, Tim Booth freewheeled for a while, pondering more theatrical avenues (he once won a best newcomer award for his part in a production of Saved). He had a film script optioned, he did a bit of DJing. Then, via a chance meeting, he stumbled back into music, working with musician/ producer Lee "Muddy" Baker on the songs for Bone. It's more groove-oriented: the closest the album comes to James is the muscular guitar rock of "Eh Mamma", a weaker track. More typical is the title track, building a baggy-ish indie-dance groove from a gust of harmonica, some pattering tabla and a guitar figure reminiscent of a Tubular Bells riff. Booth's lyrical tropes are less easy to ditch: just a few seconds in he rhymes "duality" with "reality" and muses on the cyclical nature of existence, and thereafter Bone is stuffed with Buddhist sentiments, such as "There's nothing to say/ But I will say it anyway". And he does, explaining his desire to escape mass culture in "Down to the Sea", and defining man as "an ape infected with the spark of divine" in "Monkey God". His smartest trick, though, comes in "Redneck", where he manages to profess egoless-ness while letting you know that he's really quite famous.