Chris Helme
Album: The Rookery
Label: Little Num Num
Tracks: 11
Website: http://chrishelme.co.uk/

In all the brouhaha surrounding the Stone Roses' reunion, you could be forgiven for not noticing one of the bit part players in their story has a new record to share with us. Time was Chris Helme had one of the least fancied gigs in mainstream British pop music - unveiled as the singer in John Squire's post-Roses band, The Seahorses.

The fact is though, he had more than a hand in creating two stand out Britpop classics in Blinded by the Sun and Love is the Law, was a more reliably tuneful singer than Ian Brown and never deserved the harsher criticisms levelled at him by the fashion slaves and whim followers of the music press.

But that was then…

The Rookery takes a run at classic Brit-folk that edges the graveyard of goth and cloaks itself in more of the robust melodies he showed a penchant for in The Yards, his grossly under-rated post-Seahorses outfit. Pickled Ginger opens proceedings with a gentle strum that invokes the mid-summer mysticism of Led Zep 3, tempered by a clear appreciation of Ronnie Lane's pastoral diversions in The Faces.

It's a fine opening gambit and the ideal platform from which Helme can explore the more soulful territory of the mordant Darkest Days, the sunshine-pop of Summer Girl, or the Stonesy stomp of Daddy's Farm. But the record finds its true heart on the finely tuned spectral fug of The Spindle & Cauldron in which he casts a surprisingly vulnerable vocal presence against a musical backdrop of dense psychedelia and breathy folk.

Impressive stuff.

Nick Churchill
www.thegranvillechambers.co.uk