Poor Sneaker Pimps. The Reading, England trio has always been eclipsed by the trip-hop power trio of Massive Attack, Portishead, and Tricky, whose respective genre-defining debuts (Blue Lines, Dummy and Maxinquaye) made the Pimps' fine but late-to-the-game 1996 LP Becoming X seem somewhat irrelevant. Despite that, the band persevered, building a name for themselves on the strength of a solid single ("6 Underground") and the Armand Van Helden-remixed club hit "Spin Spin Sugar". When vocalist Kelli Dayton left the band, though, Sneaker Pimps leaders Chris Corner and Liam Howe were suddenly without their only trip-hop selling point, and it became necessary for the band to redefine themselves. The duo experienced some serious growing pains with 1999's Splinter, but came back rejuvenated five years later with Bloodsport. The album was uneven, but to the Sneaker Pimps' credit, they had distanced themselves from the movement they were at first identified with, and had begun to follow a promising industrial-electro trajectory.
While the Sneaker Pimps prepare a follow-up to Bloodsport, Chris Corner has issued a solo album under the name I Am X, a tongue-in-cheek play on the name of the Pimps' debut, Becoming X. In truth, I Am X's debut, Kiss and Swallow, doesn't differ much from Bloodsport's aspirations, and actually fits nicely into the band's current trajectory. On many songs, Corner's typically gorgeous low-end synth provides oxygen for the album's dark electro pulse, at times fancying I Am X a sinister counterpart to Felix da Housecat. The opening title track functions as a bridge of sorts between Bloodsport and I Am X's new agenda, as Corner's reverbed vocals are contrasted against the heavy but lilt synth bass and crunchy snare effects. Elsewhere, the opaque Add N to (X) low-end of "You Stick It in Me" provides a healthy bounce for the song's coked-out female vocals, and the initial glitz of "Your Joy Is My Low" melts nicely into crisp string melodies and a deliberate half-time rhythm that, for better or worse, recalls Nine Inch Nails' "Closer".
Still, for all Corner's forward-thinking moves on Kiss and Swallow, I Am X still takes painful recourse to his trip-hop past, desperately trying to emote with those soaring-but-boring vocal melodies that got him in trouble on Splinter. On "Simple Girl" and "Mercy", he ruins his fantastic production with overly dramatic deliveries, and the scratchy duet-chorus on "White Suburb Impressionism" offers one of the more painful lyrics of the year: "Every cure is someone else's disease."
Two songs, thankfully, forgive I Am X of many of his missteps. The first is "Skin Vision", a slick and indisputably electro anthem whose ragged bassline could very well land the song in deep house sets, and whose sultry female vocals beg to be remixed. The second is "Missile", whose relatively complex progression and warm, cloudy timbre recall Brian Eno's "Some of Them Are Old", until I Am X harnesses the ambience with a labored beat, then overwhelms it completely with blasts of gargled choirs and warbled piano melodies. The song's not trip-hop, and it's certainly not electro-- it's just a good pop song. Straightforward pop doesn't seem like it's on the Sneaker Pimps schedule, but Corner's I Am X project certainly could handle it, especially if songs like "Missile" are what he's capable of on his own.
