Alone With Everybody

So it's here: the solo album after the trillion-selling mega-mega white thing that was Urban Hymns. And it's not up to much.

With the eyes of the world on him, oceans of money at his disposal and complete musical freedom, Richard Ashcroft has laboured hard to make a record that sounds, well, laborious. Despite the presence of pedal steel veteran, BJ Cole, and the London Community Gospel Choir, the template hasn't changed much, with mid-tempo slow-build ballads predominating. Once again, Ashcroft is striving to make Big Music, with big, brassy production, big arena-filling vocal performances - and, over and over again, big, billowing strings help lift what are really quite ordinary songs to a higher, quasi-spiritual plane.

The closest the album gets to achieving this goal is on the opening two tracks, the single 'A Song For The Lovers' and 'I Get My Beat', where Ashcroft's homely humanism shines through, unhindered by the self-absorbed narcissism that will cloud much of what follows - 'Brave New World', 'New York', 'On A Beach', interior monologues that are destined to be of more interest to their speaker than their intended audience.

Worse still is current single, 'Money To Burn', which appears to be some sort of Thatcherite mission statement: "I've got money to burn/I want to spend it on you", announces Ashcroft, vulgarly revelling in his newfound financial status. This is music for London City stockbrokers to sing along to as they drive their designer cars to their girlfriend's docklands apartment. 'C'mon People (We're Making It Now)', on the other hand, flirts with hippie values, exhorting the brotherhood to seize the day. But it's terribly vague and ultimately quite bland. And as for that video of Ashcroft swanning around Manhattan with his guitar in hand while all the 9-5 office workers rush by well, the less said about it the better.

It would help a lot if the tunes were up to the standard of 'Bittersweet Symphony' and 'Sonnet'. But sadly they're not. In taking on all the songwriting duties himself, Ashcroft may yet live to regret his break with Verve guitarist, Nick McCabe, whose musical talents are sorely missed here.

All in all, Alone With Everybody represents a missed opportunity. Ashcroft clearly has one of the strongest and most soulful voices in contemporary British pop, but he's wasting it here on average material. Maybe it's time for him to do a covers album, where he could be confident of getting heavy rotation on MTV of songs by, say, Tim Buckley or Scott Walker, which would be a great result all around. As it is, this album is a dull, scoreless draw.