Track Listing

1. Can't Get Through
2. Good Morning
3. E
4. Last Open Road
5. Coming Off The Ropes
6. Evil No 2
7. Keep On Dancing
8. Marvin
9. Firefly
10. In My Car
11. New Times Square

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #82896 in Music
• Released on: 1999-11-08
• Number of discs: 1

Customer Reviews

Quickly grew into one of my all time favourite albums
This was my first Chris Rea album. I got it for £2 in a sale, so I wasn't expecting much. Instead I was surprised to find an interesting, almost experimental album. It sounds like a blues purist working with a disco drummer and being produced by a Pink Floyd fan. It even has found sounds and voices on it like '70s Floyd.

Others seem to hate this album, but it's grown into one of my all time favourites. I like the extensive use of loud female backing vocals, and I like the ethereal floating synth sound that accompanies most of the tracks.

"Can't Get Through" (after its silly opening set of voices and sound effects) and "New Times Square" are excellent rockers.

"Evil No. 2" has some great lyrics and an energetic, slightly wacky beat to it.

"E" and "Firefly" are nice laid-back, woozy, breezy songs (if you like Van Morrison's "Wavelength" and "Inarticulate Speech of the Heart" albums, then you should like these tracks).

"Coming Off the Ropes" is pretty weak, and the voice samples are embarrassingly bad, but it's not without its jazz club charms on its umpteenth listen.

I'm not joking, I do really like this album. I assume Rea himself hates it, and it's telling that none of the tracks have turned up on the three best of collections that have been released since 1999. Listen to it with an open mind, accept that it's not a traditional blues/rock album and you might be surprised by it.

Rea takes a detour
The latest visitation to Chris Rea's love/hate relationship with his car has all the musical direction of a fun fair ride. At every turn there's a sideshow attraction that defies any logical timeline or style; a bit of 70s disco, 80s kitsch and 90s dance. All this mixed in with Rea's bluesy guitar and gravely tones, making the word eclectic seem woefully inadequate.

With Rea's health fragile at best and a return to the blues under construction, this comes across as the last hoorah for his pop/rock career, and sadly, it's a forgettable swan song. Rea's appeal has always been in his ability to use his musical slight of hand. There is no better example of this than in 1989's The Road to Hell, where fragile rock and pop mixed so successfully with acerbic social commentary. The formula here however, is tardy and painful, with just the faintest suggestion of the ingenuity and style explored by its namesake.

Not Worthy of It's Title
What a poor, poor, poor album this is. Chris must have known this was a bad album - that is probably down to the record company though. I believe that this finished is not how Chris intended it to be - which is highlighted by the fantastic new version of Keep On Dancing on the Blue Guitars Collection which shows this track as a blues song not some weird synth pop song!!

How they can attach the label of Road To Hell (probably Chris' finest mainstream album) Part 2 to this album is ludicrous. Every song on Part 1 exemplified Rea's underated talents from Road To Hell itself to Daytona and the breathtaking Tell Me There's A Heaven. Part 2 is a waste of an album and I was so disappointed when I bought around Christmas in 1999 - i took it straight back to the shop! Best stay clear of this one.