Richard Ashcroft
Alone With Everybody
Virgin

Richard Ashcroft's perceptions of his stardom have always exceeded the actuality of his fame. Alone With Everybody, his first solo set, reinforces those perceptions.

Who can blame him? From Day 1, Ashcroft's old group, the Verve, was expected to be everything that Oasis became. Occasionally, the group met the expectations. Its early singles are fantastic; its album A Storm in Heaven, was a solid debut; and its single "Bittersweet Symphony" an undeniable classic eventually featured in Nike commercials and the epic film "Cruel Intentions."

Its other albums, A Northern Soul and Urban Hymns, were both solid, but filled with overblown production and Ashcroft-isms — exaggerated posturing and over-done lyrical references. In 1997, Urban Hymns was for some reason touted alongside phenomenal albums by Radiohead and Spiritualized. The result was the booking of a stateside arena tour.

On the eve of that tour, guitarist Nick McCabe quit. The show went on and McCabe was replaced by steel pedal maestro BJ Cole and percussionist Steve Sidelnyk, but the group often played to half-filled arenas, or were forced to downsize to smaller venues altogether. The nucleus of that group, Ashcroft's wife Kate Radley (formerly keyboard player for Spiritualized) and a handful of others make up Ashcroft's band on Alone.

This album follows the more sound/less quality pattern set forth by the Verve since its debut album. There's simply too much going on. Early on, the Verve filled big spaces with a few instruments. Today, Ashcroft fills every space with every instrument.

"I Get My Beat" features the best string arrangements on the album, but beats brows by the fifth minute. "You On My Mind In My Sleep" — a kissing cousin to both Verve’s "The Drugs Don't Work" and British cult folkie Nick Drake's "Northern Sky" — concedes to the string assault in 180 seconds.

Alone isn't without its moments. "Brave New World," is classic Verve sound. Cole's restrained playing recalls McCabe's best. In fact, Cole, who is featured on eight of the eleven tracks, often saves Alone from seeping into a string-saturated netherworld.

It could be that for all the production by Ashcroft and Chris Potter, this album was rushed. There just aren't many standout songs, and too many throwaway whitey blues faux-Stones tunes like "New York," and "Money to Burn."

But largely, this is Ashcroft being pleased with himself. Take a look at the album's sleeve; it looks like a series of Calvin Klein ads: lots of shadowy black and whites with splashes of blood red...one photo of Ashcroft swallowing the quite attractive Radley's tongue, etc.

These images, perceptions that Ashcroft evidently has of himself, come across in the music. Many of these songs sound like a guy standing on a boat looking at Monte Carlo. One supposes that solitude could be construed as being alone with everybody, but more likely, Ashcroft thinks of himself as being quite alone.

— Aaron Tassano (aaronaroundthecorner@yahoo.com)