ALBERT HAMMOND JR.
Yours to Keep
Sony/BMG
· A star-making album for a rhythm guitar player.
Albert Hammond Jr. should be a star. Sure, he's the rhythm guitar player in The Strokes who made one of the finest pop records of the past 10 years, so it's not like he's gone without adulation and recognition. However, like George Harrison, Jay Ferguson and Tobin Sprout before him, Hammond is the dark horse. His guitar playing is instrumental to The Strokes's sound and he hasn't abandoned the technique that made him famous now that he has taken centre stage. However, this isn't a Strokes-lite record. There's a warmth and personality on Yours to Keep that separates Hammond, not just from his other band, but from most bands. While the last two songs, "Holiday" (that rhymes "Jamaica" with "take ya") and the mock reggae of "Hard to Live in the City," are best ignored, the eight songs leading up to them show a vulnerability that may surprise listeners who have been force-fed The Strokes silver-spoon lineage ad nauseum. Following the writerly rule of showing not telling, Hammond doesn't give too much away. The chorus to "In Transit" finds him opining "I went too far/ That's all I've got to say" after admitting he should have calmed down. Later, on the jaunty "Call an Ambulance," he paints a picture of a discussion with a girl – presumably a friend's date – with whom he wants to have sex. Most of the lyrics are surprising and mysterious without being consciously oblique. The arrangements are diverse enough that even when they don't quite jive, it's easy to applaud the effort. Yours to Keep is a way above average debut.
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