Publication: Q [UK]
Date: July 1996
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Title: "Fluctuating; Gives Warner Brothers the Kiss-Off"
Reviewed By: David Cavanagh

Understood to be the last album will make for Warner Bros, Chaos & Disorder takes the endorphins-and-dolphons beatitude of the contractually disputed The Gold Experience, and stuffs it. No sexy voices Welcome U 2 The Dawn here. This is a sarcastic kiss-off to the banality, the corruption and the tragic lack of funkiness of the corporate caucasian world.

The impersonal funk marathons of last year's Wembley Arena shows are withheld in favour of a small riot of diverse styles. The title track and I Like It There, which get things going, are two bursts of motorvatin' hard rock blues with lots of soloing. As a guitarist, is at his foxiest in some time: Crosstown Traffic riffing iced with rococo flourishes of blissful fluency.

Prettily sung, Dinner With Delores is as delicious as a strawberry, exactly the kind of melody we white heathens keep imploring him to do more of. He's equally opbliging with Into The Light - every bit as stirring as Dolphin on the last record - and I Will, a lovely Stevie Wonder-esque balled.

But what are we to make of Right The Wrong, his first ever country and western number? A terrible paleface pisstake ("yee haw!"), it's lyrics rail at slavery, the swindling of Native Americans and - who knows - the odd Warners exec. It's probably the worst song of his entire career.

I Rock Therefore I Am transposes the same polemic to the most shudderingly ragga-boombastic soundworld the NPG can initiate. It's another awful song, though: a loud six-minute bore. No better is Zannalee, a horny blues snore of merciful brevity.

Luckily, the last two songs glow with health. Dig U Better Dead is a featherlight scat-funk tune with a sharp lyrical edge, while the extraordinary Had U, a duet for mellotron and a guitar, sounnds like 90 seconds of early King Crimson.

What's up to? The fluctuating quality of this music suggest a hastily assembled grab-bag of outtakes to see out the Warners deal, a suspicion borne out by an unusually short running-time, 39 minutes. If you skip the crap songs, you have a 25-minute album. The albums final. wearily-croaked words - "Fuck you/had you" - linger bitterly.

3/5