Used to be that I greeted every UNKLE album that came after the infamous Psyence Fiction with, "hey, they're still at it." But now with Where Did the Night Fall hitting stores in the year 2010, there has been an UNKLE LP released in three consecutive decades-- it's going to be more of a surprise when James Lavelle stops making music.
While the resiliency of the UNKLE project is admirable, it was still a bummer that the artistic adventurousness of Lavelle had previously moved in lockstep with the ever-declining stakes. Granted, DJ Shadow may have taken whatever hip-hop influence/cred the project had with him before the turn of the century, but by 2008's quasi-soundtrack End Titles, Lavelle appeared to resign himself to a mishmash of soupy guitar instrumentals and charmless, cavernous Brit-rock.
But whether it's having their most solidified core in years (Lavelle is joined by Pablo Clements and touring bassist James Griffith of Big in Japan), Night is not only the strongest UNKLE album since Psyence Fiction, but also the first where a premium was placed on cohesion. The cover art is still a good indication of what hues Lavelle likes to work in-- silvery guitar lines, drums cloaked with shadowy reverb-- but UNKLE reinvent themselves as a workmanlike, electronically informed rock band favoring metronomic grooves. At the outset, UNKLE work surprisingly well hooking their jumper cables to psych rockers like Sleepy Sun and Black Angels and churning out major-key, bass-driven vigor. It's the rhythmic streamlining that ends up being the distinguishing sonic addition to Night, to the point where the most UNKLE-y track ("Joy Factory", featuring L.A. shoegazers Autolux) stands as an anomaly for having something akin to a breakbeat.
But-- perhaps inevitable considering the rotating cast-- Night is ultimately hamstrung by a personality vacuum. It's easy enough to enjoy Night while it's playing, but even after so many listens, it's hard to care about it. After an auspicious beginning, an assembly line of well-manicured but lyrically undistinguished songs about mental stress and relationships fail to make themselves stand out. Celebration's Katrina Ford and Mark Lanegan have enough vocal character to predictably dominate serviceable everydudes like South's Joel Cadbury and Clayhill's Gavin Clark, but by playing entirely to type (the walloping soul number, the dustbowl blues), their contributions feel more like character acting than songs that could be compelling in a vacuum.
So sure, this is UNKLE going "legit," making an album that feels like the word of a woodshedding, touring band that happens to have a revolving cast of talented vocalists (think a waaaaaay lower-risk, lower-reward Broken Social Scene). But then again, as risible as some parts of Psyence Fiction were, would When Did the Night Fall be on anyone's radar if it simply came from the band responsible for War Stories and not, say, "Lonely Soul"? They might strive for simple pleasures of yeoman's work, but you know, UNKLE continuing in this vein ultimately brings to mind Damon Dash's pledge to resurrect Roc-A-Fella Records: sketchy legacy or not, striving for an average future under the same banner kinda tarnishes the whole thing.
