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The Cooper Temple Clause ‘Make This Your Own’

added 22 January 2007 at 09.43

Despite a deserved reputation as a fearsome live prospect, The Cooper Temple Clause has never quite delivered the recorded goods. As evidenced on their previous releases, this isn’t a band that subscribes to the concept of self-censorship to the degree that they’ve occasionally meandered aimlessly like a group of drunken hill walkers lost in the Yorkshire Dales.

Indeed, the advanced word didn’t bode well. Former Adam and the Ants drummer and producer Chris Hughes encouraged the band to swap instruments during the recording process as much as possible with the intention of creating a wide spectrum of sound. A noble enough intention, but one that surely lends itself to indulgence on a Herculean scale?

Bizarrely, the answer is no. Eschewing the sonic onslaught of their debut and the electronica of its follow up, ‘Make This Your Own’ is an album that occupies a middle ground that sees the band attempting to reach out to a wider audience. The initial signs are good; the lean, streamlined ‘Damage’ springs from the traps and the sound is that of a band with a renewed sense of purpose. Likewise ‘Homo Sapiens’ and ‘Head’ that follow in its wake but pretty soon things begin to unravel.

 

The endless instrument and vocal swapping is counter-productive as The Cooper Temple Clause begins to struggle to find an identity to cling to. ‘Waiting Game’ is the kind of thing that Placebo would dismiss as too trite while ‘Once More With Feeling’ makes the ill-advised fusion of Gregorian chanting with ambient textures. All very nice on the chill-out front but not really something you’d expect from the band that launched ‘Panzer Attack’.

In its favour, ‘Make This Your Own’ does take steps in the right direction. The extended excursions into neo-prog pastures are thankfully curtailed and the techno-flavoured ‘Connect’ shows that the band still has a few aces its up its sleeve but taken as a whole is too disjointed to truly satisfy.

The Cooper Temple Clause ‘Make This Your Own’ (Sequel) Released January 22nd, 2007.

Tagged as The Cooper Temple Clause, archive

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