The box office numbers don't justify the possibility of a Walk Hard sequel, but if a British version were to be made, you could find worse inspirations than the Charlatans UK. Yeah, their timeline doesn't have any sort of linear sense to it, but their phases are plenty distinct: Madchester, Britpop, Dylan, Stones and even a bizarre Club Med reggae interlude (2006's Simpatico). For a change of pace, You Cross My Path doesn't actually align itself with any sort of trend other than free availability on the internet, and to hear the band tell it, that was the most likely result for this project all along. It's pretty representative of the dichotomy existent within You Cross My Path: as possibly their strongest work since Tellin' Stories, it's something that the Charlatans UK can expect to favorably speak for itself, but it will likely hold "members only" interest for the brave souls who've followed their every move this whole time-- the type that use terms like "their strongest work since Tellin' Stories."
It's a problem that's sorta out of their control; had this been released in 2000 by newcomers, it likely could have fallen into the hands of Brit enthusiasts that were fucking with the likes of South and Elbow back when "the next Coldplay" didn't quite have as many pejorative connotations. Think of it as a Greatest Hits collection that doesn't contain actual hits, or at the very least, a fake retrospection that has all of their trajectories meeting up at the same intersection. And while it might result in one of the more seamless works of recent Charlatanism, "seamless" could also pass for "meh." The building blocks are still readily identifiable-- Tim Burgess' nasal bray can still inject a good degree of sneer into lines like "you're no friend of mine" and otherwise sell the overly wordy and schlocky rhine-Stones hook of the title track. And if you can prominently feature Hammonds without sounding like Rami Jaffee is on your payroll, more power to you. Thing is, when you combine everything these guys have done into one ten-track platter, you get an unfavorable situation where survivors decades deep in the game sound like they're trying to play catch-up with the last two Stills albums.
The band's always had a tangential relationship with dance music, so it's strange to hear them so out of step. Take "Missing Beats (Of A Generation)"-- while hurtling forward with the record's greatest sense of purpose, the parenthetical likely refers to a time around 1998, which is approximately the year Kula Shaker might have been looking to latch on their B-3 trillings to a safe jungle beat. Not insular enough for ya? I'm fairly certain "My Name Is Despair" is a reference to a Rob Dickinson solo track, and I'm fairly certain that its hacked, syncopated drum pattern and phone-booth vocals were swimming around in DJ Shadow's inbox during the Psyence Fiction sessions. "The Misbegotten" cribs "Blue Monday" a bit more tastefully than Orgy did, but as far as "Bird/Reprise" goes, get Peter Hook drunk and he'll swear he played bass on it.
Problem is, for many people this will feel like a career summation in that it's all very competent, but lacking a certain personality, something that would cause other bands to be compared to the Charlatans UK as opposed to the other way around; a record that's most likely to be definitive. So really, it's difficult to determine whether You Cross My Path is a victim of the times or its own merits; it's the sort of thing that's so competent that it's more likely to be defined by its failures than its success. Unlike a similarly shapeshifting outfit like Primal Scream, Charlatans UK never flew high enough to be legendary or fell off to a point where a comeback would be interesting, and maybe they're sensing that they can only play the survivor card for so long. The album closes with, you guessed it, "This Is the End", which sounds like defiance ("I will never be put down/ I will only be set free"), but is unclear in intent. Burgess claims "it's the end of you and me," but it can easily be mistaken for a state of the Charlatans address.
