October 2nd, 2008 The Streets – Everything Is Borrowed Tags: , , ,
Posted in CD Reviews, Reviews | No Comments »

A fourth album from Birmingham’s Mike Skinner and it seems the further he goes from the bedroom dynamics which formed his début record, the worse he sounds. Its almost as if Mike needs to have tales from “the street” to build records around, his last effort seemed to be a dig at the celebrity lifestyles and when this record starts with lyrics like “i started with nothing, and leave with nothing but love, everything else is just borrowed” you feel like its not going to have the grit of “Original Pirate Material” or even “A Grand Dont Come For Free” which was built around tales of a failing relationship.

Now that the songs aren’t all about getting drunk, having secret relationships with celebrities or meeting his dealer it leaves a more serious subject matter such as the environment and extinction to his soul. There is still hints of the wit and humour that made his previous efforts so accessible but it feels like he’s become burned out and on the first few listens no songs stand out beyond any others. Atheism is a strong influence on this record and Alleged Legends tries to boil the bible down but its a subject probably best handled by someone who hasn’t spent the last 5 years telling us about his drug comedowns.

Skinner himself admitted their was just one more album left after this, and judging by this record he would be right, this is clearly getting to the bottom of the barrell so dust off his earlier work and enjoy that instead.

Album Cover

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