With its sci-fi artwork and intergalactic bent, James Lavelle's UNKLE project has always hinted at a nebulous future realm. After all, UNKLE's DJ Shadow-assisted 1998 debut was dubbed Psyence Fiction and the first words heard on the record are "somewhere in space, this may all be happening right now"-- a sample taken from the original Star Wars trailer. Lavelle's splintered media persona-- part clothing designer, part musician, part DJ, part label owner, part graphic designer-- lived up to this voyager ideal as well. And, with his penchant for throwing hip-hop, rock, dance and movie music into a zero gravity blender, Lavelle's intention seemed clear: Along with poorly-drawn, conehead-like aliens, the future will be marked by an über-genre mish-mash soundtrack. It's a nice idea.
Psyence Fiction* was an inconsistent affair, but even its failures were intriguing for either their flourishing pomp or overreaching ambition. Plus, how many albums do you know that feature original vocals from both Kool G Rap and Thom Yorke? With producer Richard File replacing Shadow as Lavelle's sonic point-man, 2004's Never, Never Land traded-in hip-hop rhythms for dance beats, but the LP lacked A-list talent and largely went unheard (no big loss there). And, by the time of Never Land's release, the explosion of internet mash-ups and the proliferation of cross-genre mixers like Diplo and 2 Many DJs were threatening to put Lavelle and his home-grown UNKLE mix-ups out to pasture. Skip ahead to the present and artists like Girl Talk and the Ed Banger crew are mastering Lavelle's one-time sonic utopia, cut and paste style. What's an intrepid dilettante with a brand new label and clothing line to do? Give up and start looking to the past, apparently.
War Stories* is the most unadventurous, most typically rock UNKLE release to date. With drums turned down and layers upon layers of fuzzy guitars and nonsensical hippie-isms turned up, it comes off like a castrated version of Primal Scream's searing XTRMNTR. Much of the new direction can be attributed to the addition of desert rock mastermind Chris Goss (Queens of the Stone Age, Masters of Reality), who helped out on production this time around. While Goss is undoubtedly a maverick when it comes to sunstroke sludge rock, his blurry style brings out Lavelle's lack of focus, resulting in several five-minute-plus mystical marathons that ride one mediocre riff all the way to glam-stomp oblivion. As for the guest list, either Lavelle misplaced a lot of phone numbers over the last decade or he's getting used to hearing "no" more often. Queens leader Josh Homme is joined by increasingly ancient Cult singer (and sometime Jim Morrison stand-in) Ian Astbury and Massive Attack's 3D. Elsewhere, second (third?) tier British garage rockers Duke Spirit, whiny folkie Gavin Clark, and producer File pop-up, too. It's even gotten to the point where Lavelle himself gets on the mic and does his best blank shoegazer on two tracks. Somewhere, Thom Yorke is not listening to War Stories.
The album's few salvageable moments are also the most rhythmic. "Burn My Shadow", with its pinpoint, stop-start snares and Astbury's wilting croon is close to harrowing and, like "Rabbit in Your Headlights" and "Eye for an Eye" before it, the song's exceptional video gives its new-age lyrics some much needed context. The Homme-sung "Restless" is an industrial-funk high that takes advantage of the singer's lofty falsetto...even if it's nearly over by the time it fully kicks in. Hazy L.A. rockers Autolux's "Persons & Machinery" drags its ticky-tack metronome beat out about two minutes too long, but the song's central lyric-- a mix of apathy and anger aimed at Blair-Bush-- is one of the few that lives up to the album's provocative title: "Please just follow your great plan through/ We've had it with you." Elsewhere, moody epics "Twilight" and "Price You Pay" are so ethereal they quickly evaporate into nothing. The string-laden chug-a-lug scuzz rockers aren't worth mentioning by name.
So, after trying to move things forward for so long-- first with his Mo' Wax label and then with UNKLE's early incarnations-- James Lavelle takes it back to a Britpop B-side wasteland filled with has-beens and never-will-be's. Such willful nostalgia doesn't do him many favors. While Lavelle's previous work can still be looked upon as visionary, his latest is anything but. Even with its repeatable tracks sounding instantly dated, War Stories marks the official end of this one-time progressive's soothsaying days.
