Album: Graham Coxon – The Spinning Top

ALBUM REVIEW: Graham Coxon – The Spinning Top
words: Christian Ritter

Graham Coxon’s seventh studio album (yep, seventh, I couldn’t believe it either) sees the Blur guitarist clock in a little off 70 minutes of predominantly acoustic based folk songs, more akin to those written by Kid Harpoon than anything Damon Albarn has attempted.

‘The Spinning Top’ begins well, with ‘Look Into the Light’ serving the listener a dose of classic Coxon, albeit without the fuzzy guitars; a song not depressing, but mellow, with Graham attempting to reach notes his vocal cords physically cannot attain! Delightful guitar work and a voice that you can’t help but love are abundant on this album, and although the lyrical content may at times be not be up to the same standard as his previous work, this can be forgiven due to the standard of the majority of songs, which would not seem out of place on a Cat Stevens record.

However, although it is clear that Coxon has for now abandoned the punk style of his last album, ‘Love Travels At Illegal Speeds’, that is by no means a precursor to writing songs that are simply too long! The calibre and potential of the songs is top-notch, however the actual song writing process seems to have been let down by these needless song lengths, with only a third of the album’s tracks consisting of less than 4 minutes. Indeed, the “wonderful for the first 3 minutes” ‘In The Morning’ lasts 8 and a half long minutes, and as it appears as the third track, one can’t help but feel this may discourage casual listeners, or those who have never given Coxon a chance before, from hearing the record more than once.

Despite all this though, ‘The Spinning Top’ remains an effort welcomed for its originality and simple delightfulness. This album may sell more amongst the over 30s demographic, partly due to its mellow sound, and partly as that may just be the age of people who would have grown up with Blur the most, however this is not to say that Graham Coxon is still an extremely relevant and competent artist, worthy of any music fan giving this a try.