Dizzy Heights, singer, songwriter, and producer (Echo & the Bunnymen, the Fall, Sleeper) Ian Broudie's fourth album under the moniker Lightning Seeds, further refines his attempts to meld There Are But Four Small Faces and the Pet Shop Boys. Predictably ravishing on the surface, the results can also claim quite a lot of bite, snippiness, and even sorrow. "Imaginary Friends" spews more believable Kinks-style bile than other contemporary competitors have mustered, while "Sugar Coated Iceberg" is a sneering appraisal of the pop scene that only an indignant true believer could manage. "Waiting for Today to Happen," cowritten with Nicky Wire, seems at least partly informed by the disappearance of Wire's fellow Manic Street Preacher Richey James. Broudie, though, is solely responsible for what proves the most affecting moment here, "Touch and Go." Both a celebration of friendship and a lament for those who have drifted into other lives, the song is an anthem for former new wavers who've long since left childish things--e.g., college and its shifting allegiances--behind for office jobs. That our emotional tour guide was born to be a light-handed chronicler of loss, innocence, and lost innocence is further underscored by the ambivalent tone of his karaoke turn at the Turtles' "You Showed Me" from the Austin Powers soundtrack, but "Touch and Go" sits at this record's heart. --Rickey Wright
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