On the four year old ”Daybreaker” Beth Orton was exploring her own music together with William Orbit, Ben Watt, Johnny Marr, The Chemical Brothers, Jim Keltner, Ryan Adams etc. The outcome was multi-directional, shattered and adventurous, in the same time so very good and appealing. I had felt that Beth Orton’s “Central Reservation” from 1999 was a bit too usual and easy to handle, still it had some really nice folk-pop songs. But it never offered me the satisfaction everyone else seemed to get.
When the first seconds starts ticking on “Comfort of Strangers, I am afraid that Beth has done what everyone except me wants her to do. On her side she has Jim O'Rourke and he’s production shines through in a blink of an eye. He has lifted Beth’s voice out from all that atmospheric echoes and such, placed the musicians in a room that sounds like its 5meters big at max and put a big thick blanket over the whole thing. It is so dry and lifeless from time to time that it simply sound like a demo recording.
Its 14 songs and at least half of them come through as a song written in 5 minutes without any real idea or purpose. I feel like "Comfort of Strangers" is “Central Reservation” part 2, but with less good songs and melodies. But the songs “Feral children” and “Safe in Your Arms” are two really good songs where Beth Orton sings with an intense voice and sincerity that is hard to not get touched by.
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