Tindersticks - Falling Down a Mountain

Tindersticks were a band that were always on the periphery for me -- an indie band that didn't seem to go away but not a band I really paid a lot of attention to. I copied their CD's when I came across them, liked what I heard, but never really become a proper fan. That was until their last album, 'the Hungry Saw' came out. I ended up seeing them live in support of it and was entranced; it remains one of the best shows I've been to and 'the Hungry Saw' is a staple on my record player (yup, I liked it so much I bought it on vinyl). They released 'Hungry Saw' after a five year break in which it looked like they were finished. Instead the break did them good and they got creative again, resulting in a new album just out, 'Falling Down a Mountain'. From first listen it's clear that the band are still excited about working again -- the tunes carry an enthusiastic vibe, as does the overall disc, and most of them are even kind of upbeat, which is pretty weird for the famously morose Tindersticks. It's good, though there are some tracks that grate, particularly 'Peanuts', and to me the album as a whole doesn't feel as cohesive as 'Hungry Saw' did. It could be that I'll love the songs more if I get to hear them live, but I don't think this album will become as special to me. In some ways it almost seems like an established pattern has been repeated but to slightly lesser effect -- here's an instrumental, here's a latin-tinged fast track, here's some soul -- but after doing some reading it seems that that is standard Tindersticks fare. Can't really fault them for doing what they do best after having been around since the 90's. You can take a listen to the whole album here; I hope they'll tour on the back of it, but playing the new one in it's entirety, as they did for 'Hungry Saw', probably isn't necessary.