Gomez
Split the Difference

(Virgin Records, Ltd.)

www.virgin-records.com

Released May, 2004

Jammy?

Gomez have released their fourth album (excluding Abandoned Shopping
Trolley Hotline, an album’s worth of demos, live BBC sessions,
alternates, early takes, et cetera), Split the Difference, giving me
opportunity to say-again-that this is not a record a “jam band” would
make.

As with 2002’s In Our Gun, the majority of songs collected on Split
the Difference clock in at about three minutes, a far cry from what
most people would consider “jamming”. However, Gomez are booked as
support with so-called jam bands, almost exclusively. In interviews,
the band are perplexed about this practice, confused about their
reputation but not suffering an identity crisis. Ditto Gomez fans.

Gomez hail, strangely, not from California or anywhere in the
Southwestern United States, Tijuana, nor anywhere in Mexico, as a lot of
their song lyrics, titles and even the band’s name might suggest, but
from Merseyside, about 15 miles north of Liverpool.

Oddly, to be from Merseyside, they don’t sound very “British”, if any
band can actually sound more or less so. The first time I heard Gomez
six years ago, I thought “They must’ve been sent to nail the lid on
Brit-pop’s coffin shut”. But I never liked the term “Brit-pop” very
much, not anymore than I like to see or hear Gomez described as a jam
band.

There are others who described Gomez as a blues band, because of Ben
Ottewell’s raspy not-quite-Joe-Cocker-ish growl, but he doesn’t sing
lead all the time. Guitarist Ian Ball often displays his roots using
terms like “summat” and sings in what can only be described, logically,
as a Scouse accent. As a result, Ball is closest in sounding like a
“typical English Indie lad” as one of my friends from that side of the
puddle would say. Tom Gray, keyboardist, very often sounds eerily like
one or the other of the Posies. This was particularly evident on 1999’s
Liquid Skin.

Split the Difference, like In Our Gun, released in 2002, find the
band paring down their sound, and shortening their songs. They tour
more, to be sure. Maybe they’ve had to do it for the sake of playing
live, but it’s not as much fun between the headphones. Maybe they’re
more accessible and thus more appealing to more people if they perform
two minute pop songs and three minute rock songs. Two minute songs or
seven minute songs, they still get booked with “jam bands”.
I have a friend who hates them. Still, after four years, he’s
complaining about having to endure a Gomez gig, when they toured to
support Liquid Skin. Maybe they played “Buena Vista”, a two part song
that lasts about 13 minutes and sounds suspiciously like something the
Stone Roses might have done at the Hacienda for the ecstasy-crazed
ravers?. Dunno, I found Gomez charming and engaging and mostly, I
thought then, but not as much as now, that they were really talented.
I had a ball. I’ve been moribund on multiple occasions since,
inconsolable because I simply don’t feel well enough to go out and see
them again and again.

Musically, the band appear to employ a technique I can only describe as
the “kitchen sink theory of how to make a record”. Gomez throw anything
and everything that will make a noise onto their songs, into their
music. That’s what makes them so wonderful to listen to. But those
days sometimes seem to be drawing to a close. Then again…

The audacity they displayed a few short years ago by releasing something
like Las Vegas Dealer,is on the wane. That song---part West Side
Story-part Guys ‘n Dolls-meets a Broadway musical saloon brawl that
never happened---stunned me. What rock band would put that on a record?
For that matter, what kind of rock band would put most of the songs on
Liquid Skin, on an album and release it? All over the map and a sharp
turn with every new tune, it’s a goldmine. A treasure chest full
of…mostly songs that last over four minutes and three that are closer to
the seven minute mark. Hard rockin’ songs, road trip songs, songs about
women and “California”.

“We Haven’t Turned Around”, hot on the heels of “Las Vegas Dealer”, with
its soft, military snare is a masterpiece of woe, opening with a cello
that becomes a weight for the duration of the song. The sweeping
strings give it an unshakeable bleakness and a profound sense of
hopelessness. The two songs taken together, back to back, like they’re
placed, are spellbinding. It remains the ultimate Gomez moment. I
would love to hear them one up this.

Positioned right in the center of Split the Difference, “Sweet
Virginia” tails “We Don’t Know Where We’re Going”, a distorted,
space-age anthem about moving forward. “Sweet Virginia”, though, sounds
like it moved back, back, back. Gomez are no strangers to sounding like
someone stuck a modern band in a shoebox with snippets of songs made
between 1890 and 1920 and shook it all up. “Voila!”

“Sweet Virginia”, a bizarrely electrified waltz, navigates, momentarily,
the same harrowing musical waters of “…Turned Around”. From the opening
bass line, I felt myself constrict and contract. It’s a disquieting,
uncomfortable song about a resentful woman, and the only light in the
dark comes from the lavish, beautiful orchestration. Gray’s voice is
gorgeous and sounds resigned to the inevitable: the song limps, clanks,
rolls to the end, sounding like an ancient steam locomotive pulling
away. Then it picks up speed and flies, like a room full of…spinning
hubcaps? “Catch Me Up”, a hoedown via telephone, follows. It’s a
shame the vocals on this song are distorted, because it might put some
people way off. And it’s a great song: a hyper-melodic square-dance,
with a sing-along chorus and staccato finale.

This is Split the Difference’s triumph: that these three songs are
where they are, in the order they are. In Our Gun’s main failing was
that there was no “We Haven’t Turned Around” or “Sweet Virginia”. Gomez
never fully pulled out all the stops and went for broke last time. They
did here, and as expected, it’s a prize.

Bolstering the mid-section are a wealth of two and three minute songs
like “Silence”, a very Who-ish number; and “Do One” and “Where Ya
Going?”, with Ottewell wailing like some puffed up rock star, circa
1970, and in damn fine form, as always. Love them or hate them, two
minute songs do not a jam band make. It’s a treat to hear them cover
bluesman Junior Kimbrough’s “Meet Me In The City”, sang without much
aside from a lot of percussion.

If they must be categorized, call Gomez psychedelic for the way their
records sound. It’s not surprising that a band with this caliber of
talent, one that tours so much and works so hard, is picking up
popularity. But their music isn’t paint by numbers, there is no
formula. Their eccentricities and eclecticism---the very core value of
this band seems to be a mutual respect and curiosity for a lot of
different types of music, and how to interpret them into rock and
roll---mean that Gomez isn’t going to appeal to everyone.
Gomez ought to feel very jammy all the same.

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Salim Nourallah
A Way To Your Heart EP

(Paisley Pop)

www.paisleypop.com

By Shona Winfrey

Potential Hit Single Alert

This is a really good---I presume debut--- offering from Nourallah, whom
I know nothing about, except what he looks like and sounds like. And
both really are pretty darned good. All he needs is a video, thrown
into heavy rotation on VH-1; he’d be an instant success.

This EP is a mostly low key affair about boy trying to meet girl-being
lovesick-losing girl. Vocally, Salim Nourallah sounds more than a
little bit like a cross between post-Replacements Paul Westerberg and
Evan Dando. The only fault in this set is the canned bedroom keyboard
line running between tracks two, “Try to Get Along”, and three, “The
Skepticians”. Tracks four and five are heartfelt, but not cloying.
All five songs are full of jangly guitars and clever choruses, even the
ballads.

The title track is an absolute diamond “A Way to Your Heart” is an
infectious burst of bubbling keyboards running under a chiming guitar
groove. It’s held together with a hand-clapping, sing-along chorus, and
it’s a classic piece of pop: unforgettable and addictive. He shoots
and he scores BIG TIME. It made me feel like a kid in a candy store!
More than that, it reminded me of what radio was like when I was
actually a kid in the candy store. I look forward to hearing more from
this one---I think he might be a keeper.

Highly recommended for fans of jangling, chiming guitar pop and
available at: www.paisleypop.com

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