Customer Reviews

Love Travels at Illegal Speeds

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Okay. First let me say that the lyrics are somewhat . . . basic; but I firmly believe they add a great amount of emotional color, particularly with his delivery, and his voice just keeps getting better. From the opening guitar shucking of "Standing On My Own Again" to the mid-tempo wind-down of "See a Better Day," there are some great effing tunes on this album. It's a step up from "Happiness in Magazines," a great record in its own right. The melodies and rhythms stay with you. At least, they stay with me. Enjoy.

....Love Travels at Illegal Speeds is Graham Coxon's (guitarist extrodinaire, formerly of Blur) 6th solo album. Following in the vein of his previous album, the nearly perfect Happiness in Magazines, it's full of melodic power pop and rock songs (ironic considering his first 3 albums are all lo-fi do-it-yourself affairs and he left Blur supposedly to avoid playing music like THIS!). This album, full of what Graham calls "songs about love" from every angle, while not as good as Magazine, is still very, very good.

It starts off with Standing On My Own Again, a rockin' opener. The best songs on the album also happen to be the ones constructed best and with memorable hooks: Standing On My Own, What's He Got?, You and I, Don't Believe Anything I Say. All the songs are good in their own way, although Graham does use a Cockney accent he has never displayed on previous albums that can get slightly whiny-sounding.

Graham plays everything on this album except for keyboards and horns, and he does a great job....he's a solid drummer, a good bass player, and as has been well known, one of the greatest British guitarists of his generation, although it's much more subtle on his solo albums than it was in Blur.

Overall, a great, solid album, not as good as Magazines (or even Kiss of Morning, at that) but still a worthy addition to his solo catalog. Now if only those rumours of Graham returning to Blur to do one final album before they call it day (as reported in NME in November of 2006) turn out to be true.........

So, Graham Coxon is from Blur, only to leave with these facts: he is the least known compared to Damon Albarn, he doesn't have even a group in the real world, and he doesn't sell as much records. In fact, I was a lot more afraid to hear Graham Coxon's works than I was with Gorillaz. (Blame that on the mainstream's introduction.) Basically, Graham Coxon cannot compare to hid lead colleague. But there is one thing he does harness the energy to try to do: writ near alluring songs about love, all while keeping it simple enough to lack any cartoonish saccharine.

Damon took his weird and quirky side and "Standing on My Own Again" proves that Graham Coxon took the rest of the rock music. Through the rest of the album, Graham's one objective is to try to rock through the rest of your heart, and give you love songs of confusion, happiness, and disappointment. The collection of the many. Translation: the theme is exactly what the title depicts. Love can be a bit of a bother in someways. And also songs like "I Can't Look at Your Skin" shows Graham Coxon is tackling songs about the twists and turns of love, all while showing he can rock just as much as he did as an ordinary guitarist. And "I Can't" almost describes the sexual feeling we have for women "I can't look at your skin/Cause its doing me in." And "Don't Let Your Man Know" shows Graham with a crush on a taken woman. Graham interrupts his fill of love with the mellow and almost near-boring "Just a State of Mind", and returning back to the twists of love with "You and I", the only song that songs just like Blur's usual stuff. The one song that bursts the mediocrity is "Gimme Some Love", which harnesses incredible punk energy as an ideal love song. Even "I Don't Wanna Go Out" has energy flinging for a man who claims to want to be alone. "Don't Believe Anything I Say" is where Graham Coxon uses his melancholy attitude to try and keep himself down in the song.

"Tell It Like It Is" has Graham Coxon going through a bit of disappointment where the love object of his life doesn't even admit that she is the love of his life. The bluesy "Flights at the Sea" is enough of a song that will make you sit down for tea thinking about your one. And the next song has Graham asking his crush "What has he got that I haven't got?" in the most disappointment-felt song worth waiting for, "What's He Got?", right before Graham makes you rattle like a snake in the post-punk shakedown of despair "You Always Let Me Down". And what other reason could the most romantically optimistic song "I See a Better Day" be written for?

There you have it that even other band mates can introduce to you some wonderful music, Graham Coxon's approach though is to try and rock his way through the album. Nonetheless, you can feel the happy in his skin rubbing off on the album. I guess there is more to the album than a bumper sticker message of the year after all.

Rating: 7/10

This is just my opinion of course but having the lyrics available courtesy of the accompanying booklet are the saviour.

I'd listened to this maybe 3 or 4 times and I found it all kind of grating or rushed or kind of thin excepting for the 4 slower tempo songs which at the time were the only memorable things on this for me.

But today I pulled out that booklet w/lyrics and it greatly helped me much better submerge into the songs I'd previously thought rushed/thin/grating.

For example, on Gimme Some Love when he screams out the word 'night' -"I can't stand the crowds on a Saturday NIGHT!!!!" or "we're a right pair, you and I", the lyrics that lead off that song.

Or in the second song I Can't Look At Your Skin when he sings about a girl 'killing boys with your body' and when he screams 'you make them so FRIKKIN crazy!!"-having the lyrics in front of you to spell all of this out is a very helpful source.

Also about the booklet, each side by side page is themed with Grahams' artwork with the lyrics below-the artwork is like a bonus feature.

I like the faster songs much better now having read the lyrics (knowing the words make the music more fun!) but it is still the 4 more relaxed songs that make this a keeper for me.

These 4 songs: Just A State Of Mind, Don't Believe Anything I Say, Flights To The Sea (Lovely Rain) and closer See A Better Day I can easily imagine being part of any Blur album past or future.

And when it comes to Graham Coxon and his solo work I always look for the Blur-like similarities which these 4 songs represent perfectly.

Finally I want to point out that each and every one of the songs on LTAIS all deal with relationships and run the gammut between watching it all 'go down the pan' to having your blues shaken with her 'miracle smile'.

And I must make mention of Graham's singing which I find always fun to listen to and again reminds me of Blur

I'll start by saying that I am not more than an extremely casual fan of Blur. I don't own any of their records and have never been impressed or dissatisfied with anything I've heard by them.

On the other hand, this album has got something that captures my interest. I find myself listening to it at least once per week. I can't say exactly why. The lyrics are simple, the music is very predictable at times, and under most circumstances I'd consider something of this ilk to be overproduced. Despite all of this though, it works. It's upbeat and positive without being sugary, and the choruses are all devilishly catchy without being repetitive (for the most part). The track "You & I" never fails to put me in a good mood.

I must admit the overall "Britishness" of it is also charming to a yank like myself. Much of this album would probably be down right annoying from an American band.

In conclusion, even if you aren't a fan of Blur, you may find something here worth a listen.

There are a few quality songs on "Love Travels at Illegal Speeds" but overall I was quite disappointed by the album.

Where most artists tend to expand upon their sound, broaden their scope, and improve upon the originality of their songwriting, Graham Coxon appears to be going backwards. I wasn't exactly sure what the point of this album was, as the majority of the songs are merely carbon-copies of other artists' styles and genres; if I want to hear the Sex Pistols I will buy one of their cds, or the same thing for The Beatles.

After hearing the originality and quality of Coxon's previous work from "You're So Great", "Coffee & T.V.", "Bitter Tears", or "Escape Song" it was quite a let-down to hear such uninspiring and basic music on his latest work.

This is not all bad news however; perhaps Mr. Coxon is running out of ideas and may have all the more reason to rejoin Blur so they can put out their best work yet.

This solo artist looks and sounds like Austin Powers, when the latter was rocking out in one of his movies. At least in Austin's case, it was a spoof. Nothing new here in guitar sounds, and the lyrics are inane. This perhaps reveals to me why I always had a limited interest in Blur.

Finally got this and boy was I missing a FANTASTIC album!!! This is how a great rock album should be great songs with great hooks! To bad BLUR was not this good!