(10-track LP/ 'LOOSE RECORDS'/ 2000)
Chris Mills, Chicago based, should be a household name. I only own this one album of his and I've only ever witnessed him play the once� but I'm a huge, huge fan.
Here are just 10 songs, but each one is brilliant to save any dubious argument. Opener 'Brand New Day,' along with the better 'Fall' ('You are the architect of our heart's destruction') - however suicidal! - is to all intents a wicked pop anthem, driven by traditional Country music influences and sounds. 'Watch Chain,' as track 2, brings the pace to a halt for this sultry sulk sung straight out of Nashville, which when coupled with the similarly-veined 'Tooth and Nail' prove that Chris can both rock-out before pensively chilling, with whiskey, fags and nauseating regrets to contend with.
'Crooked Vein' is a sassy acoustic number, while 'All You Ever Do' again pumps-up-the-jams in the spirit of John Mellencamp's soft-rock - all middle-aged and middle-America based - overly concerned with push-and-pull country-to-city factors affecting the young wanting to live life to the full and being restrained by small town narrow-mindedness: 'Them folks brought you up but all you ever do is put em down.'
Chris is always at his most startlingly compelling when he's at his most brooding and soulful, as on 'Napkin in a Wine Glass' as this slow and dark number reminds of Richard Thompson's heartbreaking songwriting legacy. Having got excited by that song though, it's still the 'Borderline' that immediately follows that is the ultimate listening experience here as the bare-backed track elicits the true soul that seeped out of Bruce Springsteen's semi-similar-sounding classic 'Atlantic City.' Love in this song and respect sounds to be as deep, devoted and yet still as insecure as it can ever get� 'I know you're looking for me but I won't let myself be found; You're the only thing I've ever loved, but I guess sometimes that's just not enough.'
The 2 final songs provide the awe-inspiring icing on an utterly life-affirming 'night in the life.' The more upbeat, lyrically proud 'Lips Are Like Poison' violates country-pop territory with bold passion once more, before the atmospheric slow-burn of the masterpiece that is Chris Mills' 'Signal/ Noise' indicates to me if nobody else that here is a poetic songwriting genius and all round nice guy melodically revelling in realistic life and love trajectories that are never easy to keep in check and that are never ever too close for comfort.
Although these songs generally pivot on ultra-sad moods, they are so catchy you wouldn't think the songs' characters are variously at their wits' end� and therein is the skill of this one Chris to potentially end all others. (STEVE RUDD)
www.chris-mills.com
www.sugarfreerecords.com
www.loosemusic.com