Music review: Ian Brown - My Way 

Source: ianbrown.co.ukIan Brown

The Stone Roses' 1989 self-titled debut remains one of the most essential rock albums of all time.

Its exuberant psychedelic dance rock defined Madchester's moment in the sun, and heralded Britpop which became the UK's answer to America's alt rock. UK journos spent years trying to find the next Stone Roses - they probably still do.

It was a rare album that exceeded the hype of the UK press, and remains a youthful triumph of swirling guitars, complex beats and multi-layered melodies. Fools Gold's funk still sounds ground-breaking, and the eight minute I Am The Resurrection is simply cathartic. She Bangs The Drum even became an anthem in deepest, darkest Waikato student pubs!

Then came the five year wait for album number two as the band battled record labels, writer's block, drugs, and eventually each other. It took years before Second Coming could be enjoyed without feeling disappointment over an opportunity and talent lost.

So what expectation remains for Stone Roses' front man Ian Brown's sixth solo album My Way? In New Zealand, surely very little, despite his inexplicable 2008 appearance at the Whitianga Blues Festival!

However in the UK his albums still reach the top 40. His Stone Roses days, his tracksuits and proto-Liam Gallagher appearance, and the referencing of the man by bands like Oasis, Arctic Monkeys, and The Charlatans have kept his die-hard fans going strong.

But based on this latest album, this loyalty seems very hard to understand.

My Way is full of songs dragged along unwillingly by plodding beats, and mired in his flat monotone. He delivers poor man's New Order choruses, and lazy man's Depeche Mode electonics, while Always Remember Me even attempts some $2 shop My Bloody Valentine noise.

The single Stellify stands out simply because it is track one, and the metronomic beats that tether almost every other song haven't yet beaten listeners into submission. Its piano riff might have played at the Hacienda back in the day, but only after everyone had gone home.

Reportedly now in possession of one of the most ordinary voices in rock, Brown uses the studio to hide his limitations behind reverb and auto-tune. This almost works.

Lyrically it verges on the ludicrous - the song title Own Brain is an anagram of his name, and he seems so pleased with this cleverness that he tells us it's an anagram - twice!

Apparently the album is autobiographical, but this seems to be limited to referencing the Roses period and hurling more insults at ex-bandmate John Squire. Exactly what a cover of In The Year 2525 is doing on an autobiographical album defies explanation.

Past halfway, Marathon Man does at last offer something stronger but by then the album has already hit the wall.

Where has the joy gone, the subtlety, the lightness of touch, the restraint, the beauty of his Stone Roses song-writing days? Where are the melodies?

If you don't own The Stone Roses debut, go out and buy it. Now. If you do own it, dig it out from the shelf. And go home and play it. Loud.

And pretend it was the start of a long and glorious career.