Maps – Turning The Mind

Maps

As my wife so often reassures me, issues with length are of no great concern and I’m guessing that Mrs James Chapman has told her hubby the same thing, though in Chapman’s case his problems arise due to an excess in length. The lucky beggar.

Though I trust and believe my wife, Chapman has sadly been led astray for Turning The Mind, Maps‘ follow up to Mercury Prize nominated debut We Can Create, is in desperate need of a trim at the musical barbers. Though there is nothing inherently wrong with a long album, there must be enough ideas present in the music to warrant it and across the 12 tracks delivered here, which run for an average of five minutes each, there’s just not enough on offer to get your teeth into. Current single ‘I Dream of Crystal’ is a perfect example. It’s one of the album’s better tracks with a Mew-esque opulence to its intro and a memorable melody to the chorus but once it reaches the three minute mark, it just retreads the ground it’s already laid, watering down the overall effect.

Turning the Mind suffers from further problems though, the most grating being Northampton based Chapman’s annoying habit of slipping into a forced quasi-American accent. It’s needless and not something I recall being particularly prevalent on We Can Create. There’s also an over reliance on vocal melody matching the background melody. This is a song mechanic which can be effective if used sparingly but Chapman milks the technique, robbing several songs of depth. When these issues occur in tandem as they so often do, the result is the dreaded filler track, of which there are many here.

With a final note on the negative, ‘Love Will Come’ is the album’s nadir. An approximation of a Chemical Brothers b-side with a Moby a-side, notably sticking out as a beacon of laziness amongst it’s good to so-so companions.

So to the good stuff and thankfully there is some. As already mentioned, ‘I Dream of Crystal’ is nicely catchy despite the run time and the same can be said for the anthemic ‘Everything is Shattering’. The opener and title track is a solid start to the album with its gentle melody and swirly synths; it’s not trying too hard and is all the more likeable for it. ‘Die Happy, Die Smiling’ has a pleasing vibe and controls the balance between getting in your head and getting annoyingly stuck there. However, these semi highlights do not completely repair the damage done by the lesser points of Turning the Mind, which as a whole is a competent but unremarkable package.

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