ENO & HYDE: SOMEDAY WORLD

Well, all good things must come to an end, and after a serious 2 year tear of purchasing 4-5 star recordings , my lucky streak has screeched to a sudden and noisy halt, much to my chagrin! Long-time hero Brian Eno has always held my admiration, ever since he spiced things up with nascent Roxy Music and going on to fame and fortune as producer and artist. I had fallen off the cart after 1995's "Spinner", a lackluster collaboration with PIL's Jah Wobble and relied on his early stuff to keep me happy. Seeing a collaboration with Underworld's Karl Hyde seemed to have some merit and I was expecting a crafty and shimmering set of electronic genius. I am crestfallen in reporting that there are only 3 tracks worthy of adulation out of a total of 9 and I find myself somewhat disappointed, especially when taking into consideration the recent discographic brilliance of my other electro heroes John Foxx and Midge Ure, both releasing spectacular works in the last 2 years.

Eno handles the synths and computers but rarely comes up with anything exciting, Hyde provides rather scrawny vocals and silly putty guitar, the only positive being Coldplay's Will Champion doing a fab job on drums. The opener "Satellites" is what hooked me into ordering this CD, a thoroughly palpitating opener that has a serious amount of intelligence in its musical adventurism, for a second I was hopeful. Sadly the next four short tracks are dreary, wimpy, simplistic and devoid of any genius. "Mother of a Dog" appears through the mist of mediocrity and gets the juices flowing again with a clever electronic-pop thingy which, incredibly is followed by another good one in "Who Rings the Bell". Regret rears its forlorn head with the final two cuts that offer nothing special or attractive. I guess giving this multiple listens will not improve my disappointment and after doing so, my position is even more concrete. Nice cover art, but this one is going into the massive collection bookcase with little chance of reappearing in my lifetime. "Someday World" indeed, should have called it "Under Whelm World" instead.

2 cantankerous spurs