I stumbled across a new album by Alice Temple last weekend (wifi on the train, or the iPhone… I’m not sure which is the best technical leap forward this century, but they combined beautifully to help a 2 hour journey pass like a dream) and after having it on fairly heavy rotation all week I thought I’d share my thoughts on it plus a couple of my personal highlights.

The first thing that struck me about the album was Alice’s voice – so distinctive, even more so than in the Eg & Alice days (almost 20 years ago!) as it’s a bit edgier these days. The next thing is that this album has got so much variety – after hearing Chemical Way a few years ago, from her 1999 album “Hang Over” which I’ve still not tracked down, my expectations were a bit lower than I’d have liked them to be. It’s not that I didn’t like Chemical Way, it’s just that it wasn’t a patch on Eg & Alice, and I loved that album. Still do. But this new album has tracks on it that have that same bittersweet feel to them – this track, If I’d Met You, is in that vein.

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The album swings between these more melancholic tracks, goes into territory more reminiscent of NIN with tracks like Black Sheep, jump-about rock with Take Me To Your Leader, and this next one, The Saint Of Love.

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I’m happy in a way that I’d set my expectations fairly low, as this album really grabbed me. I’m even more eager to get my hands on Hang Over now – if anyone can help out please shout!

More good news – after finding this album I googled Eg, and he released a new album, “Adventure Man”, last year too! Alice features on a couple of tracks (including Pull Me Through, which is apparently a re-recording of a track from Hang Over) and now I’ve managed to get Be With You In A Minute out of my CD player I’ll maybe get a wee review of it on the site before too long.

You can buy “Be With You In A Minute” on iTunes. Yeah, I’d rather have it on CD too, but I think we’re both showing our age now.