Alex Cameron - Late To Set
Alex Cameron - Late To Set
Words: Ethan Golding
The first thing long-time Al Cam fans will notice is the absence of one Roy Molloy. So, no sax no party? Well, not quite. Late To Set is unlike any Cameron album to date. It’s low on bops, that’s undeniable, but it’s also far from the dark, broodiness of Jump The Shark. It’s anthemic. Cameron has one leg in and one leg out of the Alex Cameron costume. ‘Jesus Never Had No Porno’ is a classic example of the kind of song writing that may get you in trouble for lining it up in a room full of your more earnest liberal friends, while ‘Statue Down’’s soft samba rhythms crack the door open a little more on the joke.
Cameron puts on his best Peter Gabriel blazer for Red Hook Rain, producing a larger than life ballad while Stand-in Man does to T. Rex what Bad For The Boys did to Thin Lizzy. Violent Man closes things out as a kind of postlude, revisiting Cameron’s obsession with the state of modern masculinity while musically pushing the boat out to create a tasteful and succinct close to the album. It’s album you can really sink your teeth into without being dazzled by the beautiful squalor of his last 3 albums.
The technicolour Nick Cave returns to Dublin 29 Oct, it will be interesting to see how these new tracks fit into an infamously vaudevillian style show but I am as excited as ever to find out.