Category Archives: Review

After 35 years in the music industry, it’s remarkable that this record contains such varied content and experimental sounds. It’s an album that will seep into the very core of your soul, one way or another.

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Maybe it is these extraordinary times that we are existing in that have energised the band, but it feels like a record that could easily slot in amongst their finest. There are enough bands and artists out there who only rehash their heritage, but James continue to stand nearly alone as a group who embrace the past but keep moving forwards.

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The album is a mix of the band’s sublime ‘90s alt rock sound with adventurous paths towards a more electronic sound, making for a satisfyingly original album that challenges any preconceived notions that the band is supposed to be little more than a nostalgia act for Gen X.

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Full of swirling, occasionally transcendent arrangements, ‘Living In Extraordinary Times’ proves that, even on their 15th album, James are still a viable creative force.

7/10

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‘Living in Extraordinary Times’ is testimony that a band are not outdated due to their longevity; James move with the current, creating, as we can see here, music that captures the dichotomy of the past and something unheard of, something entirely unfamiliar.

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Extraordinary Times is peak Big James, opening with elephantine drums like distant gunfire, warring with squalling guitars. Then Booth bursts in, sweaty and slightly terrifying. Remarkably, this 15th album might be their best.

4/5

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But what is most thrilling about Living in Extraordinary Times is that … it captures plenty of the eccentricity and vivacity that has always been an earmark of James’ most interesting – and best – work. It’s what continues to make them, as Booth once sang on ‘Boom Boom’, ‘too unique to be cloned’ ,and makes 2018 an extraordinary time for James.

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James have survived the vicissitudes of time, despite the singer Tim Booth coming across like a drawstring trousers-wearing soya-milk enthusiast forever threatening to lecture you on the benefits of tantric sex.

3/5

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Coming home? James have never been away.

3/5

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It can get a bit overripe at times, like the big drums and big guitar strums that accompany Booth’s big thoughts in “Extraordinary Times”. But mostly the music is sinewy and sleek indie-rock, a vibrant statement of continuing intent.

3/5

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There is something undeniably impressive about James’ durability. Formed in Manchester 36 years ago, they toured with The Smiths, signed to Factory, kept pace with Madchester and Britpop and still sound more with it than bands half their age. If Coldplay released this, it would be no disgrace.

3/5

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Being one of the most idiosyncratic bands in modern rock history, this means Living in Extraordinary Times is plenty quirky, even if James address the Trumpian turmoil in a direct fashion that speaks both to their inherent grandiosity and Tim Booth’s allergy to metaphors. Booth raves about “fake news” on “Heads,” one of the many explicit allusions to meme double-speak and other modern plagues scattered throughout the album, but even if his words are foregrounded, they’re overwhelmed by the sheets of sounds and surplus of ideas teeming throughout the album.

3.5/5

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