Take it as red, Hucknall’s still simply magic
WHEN Simply Red played what was billed as their final concert at London’s O2 Arena in December 2010, Mick Hucknall was adamant there would be no going back.
‘ I’ll be amazed if I ever play as Simply Red again,’ he said. ‘That’s it — it’s over.’
But five years after that emotional ‘farewell’, the group are back with a new album and UK tour. And, on the 30th anniversary of 1985 debut album Picture Book, Hucknall is unapologetic: ‘ I’m fully aware that some critics will be cynical, but I’d be an old misery guts if I didn’t celebrate such a big anniversary.’
The singer’s decision to reassemble a band who were a fixture in British pop for 25 years is vindicated by Big Love.
The first Simply Red album since 1995’ s Life to feature original songs only — no cover versions — it reiterates his allegiance to blue-eyed soul music while containing some of his most personal lyrics yet.
Hucknall, 54, has spent the past five years raising his eight- year- old daughter, Romy, with his wife Gabriella and family life provides a clear cornerstone here. Home and hearth have given the one-time playboy a fresh perspective, though contentment hasn’t stopped him from tackling some difficult issues.
nowhere is this more apparent than on Dad, a beautifully sung lament that tearfully salutes the ‘years of devotion’ put in by his late father Reg, who raised Mick after his mother walked out when he was three: ‘She left, you stayed/It really wasn’t simple at all/ You cried, I smiled/I really wasn’t lonely at all.’
Honest and heartfelt, it is a modern echo of 1985’s Holding Back The Years.
Old demons are addressed again on The Ghost Of Love. A song about abandonment, it avoids sounding gloomy thanks to a panoramic arrangement. A celebratory mood is evident elsewhere, too, with the title track a simple ballad about the joys of family life and Shine On blending funky drumming with sprightly sax.
Hucknall’s silky voice is also in fine fettle; his natural sweetness augmented with the gruffness of age and a sense of timing that allows him to cruise through songs before adding intermittent bursts of urgency and dynamism.
Putting a tuneful, British spin on the rhythms of black America, Simply Red have shied away from anything groundbreaking here. But, in playing to their wellestablished strengths, Mick and his reunited band have delivered a come- back that stands up well to such Brit- soul standards as Stars and A new Flame.
FLORENCE WELCH has hinted at a more intimate approach on her third Florence + The Machine album since being swept along by the tide of talented female singers who emerged in London in the late noughties.
But despite moments of introspection, this is another grandiose affair. Welch’s full-throttle vocal histrionics are again framed by expansive instrumentation, while her vivid imagination is given full rein on songs rooted in fantasy and metaphor.
FLORENCE, 28, has toned things down since 2011’ s Ceremonials. With producer Markus Dravs at the helm, this album is warmer. but more rambling.
A tendency to over- embellish is never far from the surface. The title track features a brass section (led by Goldfrapp’s Will Gregory) that powers its way towards a cinematic finale.
Welch remains a forceful vocalist, but the most convincing tracks are those in which she sings with disarming tenderness, reining herself in on the lovelorn blues number Long & Lost before giving a glimpse of the woman behind the music on the tremulous soul ballad Caught. She also recaptures the fierce, punkish defiance of her formative years on recent single What Kind Of Man, which finds her ‘trying to cross a canyon with a broken limb’. Given that she fractured a foot at last month’s Coachella Festival, the song has proved prophetic. Florence has since taken to singing from a stool, though she should be fully fit for Glastonbury. But this — part confessional, part melodrama — feels like a transitional album.