The Hours - Narcissus Road

In music, you can never escape your past. When Courtney Love recently appeared on Jonathan Ross, she expressed utter bemusement that she’s still referred to as ‘Kurt Cobain’s widow’. Despite dropping his surname and releasing a rather good solo album, to the ignorant, Jarvis may never be anything more than ‘that bloke who bared his arse to Michael Jackson’. In a similar vein, The Hours’ Antony Genn himself played with Pulp, and comes backed with praise from Cocker. It’s a nice enough premise with which to approach an album, but, on the evidence of ‘Narcissus Road’, The Hours haven’t even carved out something brilliant enough to shake off the ghosts of Genn’s musical past.

First single and album opener ‘Ali In The Jungle’ is storming, a brooding, determined ode to having all the odds stacked up against you and still achieving ‘the greatest comeback since Lazarus’. But there’s not much else on the album to match it - ‘Narcissus Road’ is faintly interesting, single ‘Back When You Were Good’ sounds like the most sweeping of James Bond songs, while ‘Dive In’ is oddly reminiscent of Embrace. ‘Murder Or Suicide’ is the only track with any real bite, a vicious, flag-waving snarl that delivers the classy put down ‘I’m richer than you ever could be’ with a panache that betrays what the album had the potential to sound like.

‘Narcissus Road’ might not live up to the glories of the past - but then, what does?!