MY HOTEL YEAR

'My Hotel Year' is a collection of melancholic songs dripped in sorrow, even spleen on a few occasions, and if I am not wrong this is Tim Bowness' first entirely solo record where he is responsible for the lyrics and the music for the most part. One thing is evident, and this is his unique take on the art rock and even progressive rock; a bit of the alternative scene might have also influenced this particular album, being released in 2004.

The songs are minimally composed without overproduction, carefully crafted, so that each one serves a purpose. The keyboards are the musical backbone on 'My Hotel Year' with some tape recordings, occasional guitars, fuzz bass, and other effects, all placed well in my opinion.

But this is really a record to listen to on a cold rainy night. Tim Bowness conducts quite well the feelings of loneliness, desperation, disappointment with love, and misunderstanding. It feels like a very personal and retrospective record, with some memorable and intriguing art rock numbers like 'I Once Loved You', 'The Me I Knew', 'Hotel Year', 'Making A Mess In A Clean Place'. 'My Hotel Year' is an interesting album but lacks the coherence that, for example, the No-Man albums have, or the Porcupine Tree ones from that same period.