On his sixth solo album, LOVE TRAVELS AT ILLEGAL SPEEDS, former Blur guitarist Graham Coxon builds on the momentum of his well-received previous outing, HAPPINESS IN MAGAZINES. Like that record, LOVE finds Coxon once again working with renowned producer Stephen Street, and the album generally avoids the lo-fi experimentalism of earlier releases in favor of energetic power-pop, as best revealed on the revved-up "Standing on My Own Again" and the Kinks-like "You & I." Clearly comfortable as a singer by this point, Coxon lets his charmingly off-key voice carry largely acoustic tunes such as the wistful "Just a State of Mind" and the plaintive "See a Better Day," resulting in a varied and engaging album that is sure to please many Britpop fans.
Since Graham Coxon began his solo career with deliberate obscurist, alienating indie rock, it was easy to miss his transition back to the pop skills that he extravagantly displayed as the guitarist for Blur, but 2004's Happiness in Magazines was a full-bodied, full-throttle pronouncement that he had returned to the music that made his mark -- and it was damn good too, filled with tight pop songwriting and barbed-wire guitar. Its 2006 follow-up Love Travels at Illegal Speeds betters it in every respect, upping the ante in both its sound and songs. Coxon's writing is taut and precise. Where his earlier solo records felt a little haphazard, as if he was trying to rein in his natural talent for hooks, he lets them accumulate here and lets them build; consequently, this is music that has a bright immediate impact in its tunefulness, but repetition reveals how well-constructed it is. And those repeated listens don't dull the appeal of Love Travels at Illegal Speeds. Much of this is taut, tantalizing pop -- grounded in the melodicism of British Invasion but played with the nervy precision of art-punk -- and while Coxon doesn't work with much more than guitars, bass, drums and harmonies, he finds a variety of lively rhythms and unpredictable textures that not only make this sound fresh, but reveals new sounds upon repeated place. Coxon's ambitions on Love Travels at Illegal Speeds may not be grand -- he has simply made a punky pop album (which is different than punk-pop) -- but his execution is exceptional, which makes this a very appealing album. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine minimize