Taken from this year’s Outlaster album, ‘You Can Take Your Time’ sounds so much like a variant on ‘Keep Me Warm’ by Ida Maria that it’s unreal. Essentially the tunes are identical, but it’s the little details that make or break a song. The devil is, as always, in the details. ‘Keep Me Warm’ is essentially a love song to nicotine and coffee, and while it could be argued that odes to drugs don’t have the same emotional impact as ‘You Can Take Your Time’s’ plea to an absent lover, cigarettes killed my grandfather, raped my grandmother, and caffeine is one of the cornerstones of my life (OK, one of those isn’t true).
I’m not really convinced by the arrangements either. The stripped down, deep night feel of ‘Keep Me Warm’ packs far more of an emotional punch than the big, stomping, obliterating foot of the strings in ‘You Can Take Your Time’. They could be taken from Joanna Newsom’s YS, but where such embellishments compliment Newsom’s eccentricity, here they drown the song in a sea of drama – like Al Pacino’s performance in The Devil’s Advocate.
That aside, the sparse drums are excellently employed, and Nina Nastasia’s underlying talent is made obvious by the “naked” b-side ‘One Turned In’ – it’s just Nina, her guitar and a great song. More of this please!
Release Date 06/12/2010 (FatCat Records)
I started out writing for the Manchester Evening News as a freelance journalist back in 2008. The idea that I would be given free access to music and gigs seemed somehow miraculous to me, and I proceeded to take full advantage of the situation. When the M.E.N. decided to constrict its coverage to only the very biggest bands, Simon Poole approached me with a plan to make sure that all the very talented musicians of this world that pass through and/or live in Manchester would not go unnoticed. As the New Releases editor here at Silent Radio Towers, it remains my proud duty to cast a critical eye over the music and reviews that come my way in a manner that is both supportive and fair. Above all, I strive to write as entertainingly possible. Favourite musicians include the Pixies, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, The Beatles, Mercury Rev, Os Mutantes, The Knife, Beach House etc etc. I'm a firm believer that all genres (except nu-metal) contain music of great quality...
