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Graham Coxon -
The Sky Is Too High
Reviewed
by NME,
August 1998
 THE
OTHERS WERE MORE predictable. Damon's solo album: a
triple opus rock opera called Darren, the story of
a deaf, dumb and asthmatic accountant from Colchester.
Alex's solo album: ironic footie chants called 'Here We
Go, Here We Go, Here We Go (Down Groucho's With Stephen
Fry)'. Dave's solo album: the theme from Jimbo,
but with more drumming.
But Graham? El Coxo Eclectico? 'Blur' was
allegedly his album, a chance to smear his post-grunge
vision across Blur's immaculate pop visage, to cake
Damon's sheen with unsightly guitar sludge. So what would
happen if you gave him his own label (Transcopic) and
allowed him free range to record the album he'd wished
'Blur' could have been?
Brace yourselves. For here's his first solo
opus for our enjoyment - a rough-edged and hairy-toothed
beast, not so much the album's worth of 'You're So
Great's that we hoped for, more the sound of one of
Britain's most talented songwriters sticking his head in
a bucket of chopped liver and moaning for 11 tracks. It's
a record that trawls the depths of recording practices
unfathomed outside of Lou Barlow's bedroom and never
ventures within a thousand leagues of a 'real' producer.
As though Graham, driven to distraction from playing
'Girls And Boys' once too bloody often, has taken a
screwdriver to the innards of his guitars, crept into the
Good Mixer toilets with a Dictaphone and a ruptured
acoustic and knocked up an album of raw, ragged and
rudimentary genius in about 15 minutes.
There's an inescapable whiff of artifice,
however - the accomplished guitarist pretending to fumble
his way through two-chord whiners like 'Me You, We Two'
and 'R U Lonely?' with all the confidence of a geography
teacher bashing out 'Kumbaya'; the interstellar tune
craftsman writing songs less complex than 'Vindaloo' ('In
A Salty Sea', 'Waiting'); the grown man writing his
sleeve-notes in the style of a retarded six-year-old. The
great and good unlearning their precious skills and
pretending to be bollocks in a bucket, in essence.
Scientists call it The Paul McCartney Busking In A False
Beard To See If Anyone Notices Syndrome and it comes into
full cringeworthy effect on 'Mornin' Blues', the record's
abysmal cod-blues coda that was seemingly recorded under
the studio on a one-string banjo. Ouch.
But no matter how much Graham tries to
muffle, moderate or, in 'That's All I Wanna Do', bury his
talent under a mighty avalanche of Dinosaur Jr effluent,
he can't hide from The Tunes. 'Hard And Slow' is a
wistful beauty, half Yo La Tengo, half Simon &
Garfunkel. And 'Who The Fuck?' is a brilliant pastiche of
Coxo's bandmates, a frantic fireball thrash of yob
chanting, amphetamine gibberish and spittle, like
'Parklife' on a tequila rampage with a sharpened copy of
'Vindaloo' up its arse. Inspired.
If 'The Sky...' proves one thing it's that
Blur are a weird but inseparable concoction. Damon brings
the crux, Alex the class, Dave the clatter and Graham the
clutter. Alone Graham's a maverick, dreamily scraping
nuggets of blood from his record collection but unable to
stretch far beyond it. Still, a bit more fi by and by and
he'll fly, bleedin' high.
7/10 Reviewed
by unknown
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