JANE’S ADDICTION
The Great Escape Artist
EMI, 2011

By Shane Pinnegar

Jane’s Addiction are back – yet again! The difference this time is that their frisson seems to be working in their favour again after 2003’s lacklustre “Strays”.

Whilst leaps and bounds beyond on that album, “The Great Escape Artist” is still an album of two halves.

Opener ‘Underground’ harkens back to the album that first made international waves for them, “Nothings Shocking”, with it’s heavy guitars and swirling rhythms.

‘End To The Lies’ weighs in with a modern Doors feel, while ‘Curiosity Kills’ stirs a few elements of Portishead into the mix – tribal rhythms and waves of guitars wash over the listener, and in ‘Irresistable Force (Met The Unmovable Object)’ and ‘Twisted Tales’ they have crafted a couple of hypnotic, melodic gems.

Throughout the whole first half of the album Jane’s Addiction are experimental and sound genuinely creative and exciting, but by track 7 it starts to get a bit dull.

‘Ultimate Reason’ and ‘Splash A Little Water On It’ are the sort of songs these uber precocious talents could write in their sleep – so they’re just filler here. Not bad, just not good enough to have made the cut, and the last two tracks don’t do enough to redeem the situation.

Whilst nothing here offends the ears, it’s the first six tracks that fans will be focussing on, and worthy additions to their canon they are indeed.

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