REVIEW: My Life Story, The Golden Mile (Parlophone U.K.)

- Patrick Carmosino

My Life Story certainly rank right now as the top Brit import that no American company seems to want any part of (but they'll put fookin' Bush out, eh?). My Life Story comes out of a certain unintentioned genre of street urchin lounge (i.e. Pulp, Divine Comedy) but where Jarvis Cocker and Neil Hannon come off as dark and precious, MLS's sound is a somewhat brighter, more accessible thing altogether. Of which I prefer depends on the mood, I suppose.

Tracks like "12 Reasons Why I Love Her" and "Suited & Booted" have an 80's drama queen feel that hasn't been felt since Marc Almond's The Stars We Are. Both start out with orchestral flourishes that haven't been heard since the golden age of M.G.M. and flow into finely produced pieces of poppingdom.. With steady horn and string sections following virtually everywhere that the melodies go, MLS sports a assemblage of musicians that resembles Dexy's Midnight Runners with an incredibly better sense of style. Lines like "All dressed up and I'm in my prime" (from "Suited") are crooned with a mix of bravado, excitement and desperation from My Life Story's frontman Jake Shillingford. Other highlights, like "Strumpet" show that MLS can put the strings and the timpani away and lay down driving, Brit-pop guitar with the best of them. More ace pop flourishes are provided by "Sparkle"(which has an intro that reminds one of B-Movie's "Nowhere Girl") and "April 1st".

Things at times do get a bit overwrought, like on "Mr. Boyd" where the string section arrangement gets dramatically nutty as well as the emotional piano coda at the end. Better ballads by MLS are evident here like "You Can't Uneat The Apple" and "November 5th". Such is the risk of the tightrope that is drama queen pop, where one could disappear into the abyss of kitsch at any given moment. On "The King Of Kissingdom", MLS actually falls the other way on that tightrope...into the splendour of camp with its 2/4 beat.

My Life Story is certainly one of the answers for those seeking relief from the easy comfort of Brit-pop. They have brought back the need to be seen, the need for style in the face of utter poverty, the need for romanticism in a way that outclasses the Romo movement that lasted in the UK for about a lunchtime, the need for flourish in the face of boredom...the need to do something more than play a fookin' tune.