Album Review

Graham Coxon – The Spinning Top

• 9th May 2009

Blur’s Mr Grumpy decides to ditch the heavy guitar pop leanings and instead unleashes his softer folkier side with ‘Spinning Top’. It’s a huge stride away from his previous offerings and he is adequately aided and abetted with contributions from Robyn Hitchcock and Danny Thompson whilst resident Blur producer Stephen Street is on knob control throughout.

Maintaining his trademark deadpan drawl. ‘Spinning top’ is a narrative of birth to death and he doesn’t fail to deliver whilst almost rocking out with ‘dead bees’ then delivering the simple enchantment of ‘far from everything’. ‘In the morning’ is the closest thing I’ve encountered to a folk wig-out and at 8 mins long is simply beautiful and the standout track. A brave ‘head on the block’ album that demonstrates to his peers that he has more than one trick in his locker!!