For good and for ill, the Charlatans have been one of the most consistent British pop bands around since their inception in 1989. Of all the bands that emerged from the Madchester/baggy scene—those appropriately loose genre descriptors for acts that aimed to connect 1960s pop and psychedelia with the pulse and energy of acid house—this West Midlands group hasn’t played the long-hiatus-then-reunion game that nearly all of their contemporaries did. They’ve instead stayed the course, releasing a new album every few years that dutifully land in the top half of the UK charts. As the Charlatans approach their 30th birthday as a group, they’ve arrived at elder statesmen status, and it’s allowed them to call on famous fans and friends like novelist Ian Rankin, actor Sharon Horgan, Paul Weller, and Johnny Marr to contribute to the cause of their 13th studio album Different Days.
But like many bands of their age and ilk, that consistency has been to the Charlatans’ creative detriment. Unlike many of their peers, such as Blur or James, the group has been slow to evolve beyond the agreeable, danceable sound of their 1990 debut Some Friendly. They’ve dressed it up at times with front-facing guitars (their 1995 self-titled album), a touch of Dylanesque rumination (2004’s Up At the Lake), and charmingly wobbly reggae experiments (2006’s Simpatico), but the skeleton remains the same. On Different Days, the only elements that feel out of the ordinary are the interesting but unnecessary spoken word interludes by Rankin and Lambchop’s Kurt Wagner. Everything else pretty much stays the course.
For longtime followers of the group, that is surely a source of comfort. You know exactly what you’re going to get with a new Charlatans album. The fun then becomes listening for those ways in which they slightly tweak the formula. For Different Days, it’s all about what their many guests brought to the table.
As ever, Marr leaves the most refreshing mark on these songs, with his recognizable guitar melding into the Stones-ian groove of “Not Forgotten” and the utterly delightful title track. He also helps provide added ballast on “Plastic Machinery” so Brian Jonestown Massacre leader Anton Newcombe can fly free on his buzzing guitar line. New Order members Gillian Gilbert and Stephen Morris evoke the title of “The Same House” by adding rave-ready rhythm tracks to this charming but repetitive number. And Weller coaxes a nice smooth 1970s R&B feel out of the band with gruff contributions of piano, percussion, and vocals to the album closer “Spinning Out,” which he also co-wrote.
All of those augmentations simply aren’t enough to elevate Different Days beyond the Charlatans’ unbroken streak of good-not-great albums that they’ve released since their creative high point of 1997’s Tellin’ Stories. The majority of the songs here are plenty engaging with some rising above the fray. The title track showcases the group’s ability to play with and against a programmed beat—in this case, a jaunty music box melody that rattles beneath the song’s pleasant midtempo ramble. And the jangly “Let’s Go Together” is one of the kindest love songs that singer/bandleader Tim Burgess has written to date (“If I succeed in being in your dreams/I will unwind, I’ll be easy to find”) aided by some swimmy tones created by keyboardist Tony Rodgers.
Again, that’s been the mark of a Charlatans album for the past 20 years: a couple of cracking singles surrounded by a bunch of thoughtful, forgettable tunes. It gets doubly frustrating when looking at the varied work that Burgess has done outside of the group, including his Mark Nevers-produced, Nashville-recorded solo album Oh No I Love You and his wonderful electronic pop collaboration with composer Peter Gordon (last year’s Same Language, Different Worlds). Asking his band to change course in a dramatic fashion after nearly three decades together might be too much. But allowing themselves to get away from the tried and true could give the Charlatans a nice creative jolt to keep them going for another 30 years.
