NEIL HALSTEAD
Sleeping On Roads
4AD
· Solo debut from former Slowdive and current Mojave 3 frontman.
The further he gets from his early shoegaze days in Slowdive, Neil Halstead sounds more and more like Nick Drake, but he steps out on his own with Sleeping on Roads. As frontman for Mojave 3, Halstead perfected his unique brand of sandy desert country yarns by way of Piccadilly. For Sleeping on Roads, the country tinges have been removed in favour of Belle & Sebastian-style ’70s throwback pop twee-ness. While the effect is often memorable, Halstead solo misses the heights of his other projects – but just barely.
The likes of "See You on Rooftops" and "Driving With Bert" skip along a California pop highway, but Halstead occasionally stretches his sharp three-minute ideas into six-minute epics that tend to lag. Always capable of navel gazing, Halstead’s never been as preachy as on "Martha’s Mantra (For The Pain)." But if for nothing else, Sleeping on Roads is certainly worth taking note of as a Mojave 3 stop-gap, and among the countless artists for whom Nick Drake comparisons are de rigeur, Halstead is still one of the few who deserve it.
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