Lloyd Cole – On Pain – Album Review
by Killian Laher

Fair play to Lloyd Cole.  Not one to stick to his tried and trusted, perceived sound – jangly guitars and wordy lyrics.  2019’s Guesswork saw him combine his songwriter material with his lesser-known electronic work in what seemed to be a new direction for him.  He has continued down this path with his 12th solo album, On Pain.

It opens with the title track which is a largely moody electronic-based track with added guitars here and there and Cole’s voice treated and manipulated in some sort of way.  The relatively conventional Warm By The Fire has a stately rock feel but it might prove a little middle of the road for some tastes.  I Can Hear Everything jars a bit with the use of a vocoder to alter his voice, but parking that aspect, the track works.  At times (here and in the minimal, equally moody This Can’t Be Happening) you are reminded of Sylvian and Sakamoto.  For an artist considered something of a wordsmith, it’s quite the departure that This Can’t Be Happening consists merely of the lyrics “you can’t believe it, it can’t be possible, but it’s happening now” repeatedly.  Which, remarkably, works very well.

The Idiot channels late 70’s Bowie/Iggy art-rock tight from the title.  It’s the most overt nod to Cole’s love of Kraftwerk, he adds to it by singing “We’ll move to Berlin – stop being drug addicts”, and later “LA is so 1975, we’ve got to get out, how are we still alive?”

The moody, electronic You Are Here Now is like nothing Lloyd Cole has done before – rather downcast, moody electronica – no beats till three minutes in when a pounding beat comes in, it’s music to completely lose yourself in, and his best song in years.  The relaxed, downbeat feel continues through to the final track Wolves, which broods gently as Lloyd croons a wolverine-like “ah oooh”.

It’s a little strange for those who haven’t kept up with Cole’s output over the years, but little by little, it grows on you.  He has taken up where his last solo album left off, but this time he inhabits the music more naturally.  It’s enjoyable on a whole different level from his previous solo work and turns on its head your idea of what a Lloyd Cole album should be.  It’s akin to what Mark Eitzel did on his electronic-based 2001 album The Invisible Man.  On the face of it, he’s just replaced guitars with synths, but it sounds like a brave new direction for Lloyd Cole.

Warm By The Fire