One Day I'm Going to Soar is a concept album with an unreliable narrator, a comeback LP about being stuck in a self-defeating cycle, and a soul record dedicated partly to exposing its singer as an untrustworthy shit. For devotees of bandleader Kevin Rowland-- and there are many, despite the last Dexys album having come out 27 years ago-- this is exactly what they've been hoping to hear. For anyone else, an hour in Rowland's company will be more of an effort, though probably one worth making. The new record picks up where 1985's Don't Stand Me Down left off. That album was a commercial disaster that became a cult favorite for its emotional complexity and its formal daring, as tracks cut mid-song into long conversations between Rowland and bandmates. Some of these were awkwardly revealing chit-chat, some statements of belief. Dexys Midnight Runners, as they were known in the 80s, always had a reputation for passion and honesty, but there was an uncomfortable intimacy about the Don't Stand Me Down work which made it their most difficult but gripping record.
The passion returns in the comeback; more measured than before, at its best when burning slowly on "She Got a Wiggle" or "I'm Thinking of You". The dialogues are back, too: The middle of the record sees Rowland chase and discard co-vocalist Madeleine Hyland. And the honesty and intimacy return unaltered. Utterly unaltered: Rowland at 58 is as perpetually unsatisfied and self-doubting as he was at 31, and just as frank about his hopeless inability to make relationships work. He remains one of pop's great flagellants, with each new song flaying a layer of skin from the last one. He starts the album thoughtful and lonely, turns lustful, then romantic, then reveals that he never meant it, then agonises over not meaning it, then celebrates the fact that he doesn't, and finally ends up meditative again-- deciding, essentially, that he is what he is and it's not likely to change.
The big questions for the listener, then, are: Does Kevin Rowland have anything interesting to say about love, infatuation, or commitment to people who aren't Kevin Rowland? And does he say it well? The answer to the second question is an emphatic yes: Rowland himself is in terrific form here. His voice has lost some of its rougher edges-- he barks and yelps less-- and if he sounds more weathered he also sounds richer: he sells the melancholy on opener "Now" and closer "It's OK, John Joe" perfectly. He has several shades of monologue to choose from-- pinched and self-mocking on "I'm Thinking of You", humble and sincere nearer the end. On "You" he tags barbed emphases on the end of his lines like Dylan in the 1960s. On "Me" he undermines his band's meandering supper-club soul with whispers of "Is this it?" and "What the fuck happened?" Said band is tight and unobtrusive throughout; this isn't a record you'll return to for its hooks, and the production can feel rather flat, but their job is to color Rowland's moods and self-revelations, and they do it well.
Which means that, as with any confessional record, One Day I'm Going to Soar ends up relying on how fascinating you find its lead character. Very few rock stars have ever been as willing to dismantle themselves in song as Kevin Rowland. But it's also true that his themes here-- lack of commitment, inability to love-- are well-trodden. His insights, like "why would I want to buy a book when I could join the library?" are the kind of things men in their melodramatic 20s or bitter 40s have always said. The crux of the record is the deliciously awkward moment on "I'm Always Going to Love You" where the lumbering disco stops and Rowland admits to Hyland that he's made a dreadful mistake. It shows that his sense of theater and comic timing hasn't faded. But the emotional meat of the songs which immediately follow isn't much more than an extended "It's not you, it's me."
One Day I'm Going to Soar is an idiosyncratic, brave record, and nobody else is likely to make one much like it. It's sharp, thought-out down to the briefest note, and, astonishingly given the 27 year gap, it fits naturally into the Dexys story. But the fans who'll get the most from it emotionally will be those who are already invested in its singer and his honesty.
