Ba-ba-ba-ba-be! begins the Montero album, a disbelieving stutter in awe at it’s subject, the late Wheel of Fortune host Adriana Xenides. Making his vocal drag deeply like the wrong speed has been switched on the turntable, Ben Montero submits himself to the force of love with Adriana’s thundering chorus “She melts me down”. It’s exciting, eccentric songwriting that nods to early Eno and current Ariel Pink, and makes for a forceful, convincing start to the album, with the triumph continuing on the lighter, soft-rock singalong of second track, BC.
Montero wholeheartedly embrace radio-friendly soft-rock, and they settle into an amiable, sometimes meandering groove for the remainder of the album. Lightweight ballads are likely to kick off with noodling moog and build to earnest statements like the pleading “Does it have to be tonight?” or the Granddaddy-like “Giving everything we’ve got!”.
It’s tempting to term a back-up band made up of Guy Blackman, Geoffrey O’Connor and Cameron Potts a super-group, though they serve as reliable instrumentalists who dedicate themselves to Montero’s modus operandi rather functioning as a collaborating collective. The longer, more experimental tracks on the album’s second side give the group more of a chance to shine.
The Loving Gaze commits to a classic sound and adds its own dollops of weirdness, but the highlights suggest that Montero has scope to take his ambitions further.
BY CHRIS GIRDLER
Best Track: Adriana
If You Like These, You’ll Like This: Mature Themes ARIEL PINK’S HAUNTED GRAFFITI, The Association THE ASSOCIATION, That’s Why God Made The Radio THE BEACH BOYS
In A Word: Self-reflection
