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Further Complications
Generally favorable reviews
Based on 27 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 8 votes
Read user comments
Rate this album >
Album Info
Label: Rough Trade
Release Date: 19 May 2009
Discs: 1 disc
Genre(s): Rock, Indie
Summary
The second solo album for the Pulp frontman was produced by Steve Albini.
Also By This Artist: Jarvis
Also On Metacritic
MUSIC: Pulp: We Love Life
Also On The Web: Official Artist Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
All Music Guide
The songs here pulsate with perversion, a middle-aged man making damn sure that he's going to get with a tight 23-year-old body yet again; it's the sound of a fetishist turned sexual omnivore.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly
The raucousness of 'Homewrecker!' or the title track will come as a definite surprise to longtime Cocker watchers, though not necessarily a bad one. And the man's droll wordplay is still the dominating factor.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club)
Steve Albini’s production retains some of the lushness Cocker favored on Pulp’s later albums and his solo debut, while investing it with a new punchiness. The approach ups the drama on Cocker’s tales of mid-life desire and failure.
Read Full Review >cokemachineglow
It’s his most focused album in over a decade, and ought to absolutely kill onstage.
Read Full Review >Billboard
This second solo album is so strong that a listening moves from why to why-not territory rather quickly.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe
Long branded a thinking man's rocker, Cocker seems refreshed to simply bash through an electrifying set of tunes concerned more with appropriate vibe than surgical precision. It's deeper than you think.
Read Full Review >musicOMH.com
Minor missteps aside, Further Complications is a bold, progressive step forward in the so far, so very good solo career of Jarvis Cocker.
Read Full Review >PopMatters
It’s a success. Whether he keeps on in this vein or branches out even further, this album proves you can, in fact, teach an old letch new tricks.
Read Full Review >Spin
Neither Cocker's chewy structures nor his voice's subtle shadings are particularly well suited to Albini's you-are-there engineering. Fortunately, this collection of surging and reeling tunes is the former Pulp frontman's strongest since "Different Class."
Read Full Review >Uncut
It’s a wonderful surprise that Further Complications turns out to be such a reinvigorated piece of work. Much of this freshness must be down to the working methods of producer Steve Albini.
Read Full Review >Slant Magazine
The result is an album thick with a humid sense of decaying sexuality, a desperate voraciousness made even grimier by the gritty production.
Read Full Review >Drowned In Sound
Unlike the best of those artists, however, the variety of ideas on Further Complication do not have a uniform success rate to bond them, and this is what stops the album short of reaching classic status.
Read Full Review >Q Magazine
It's a flinty rock record that lets Cocker's inner guitar beast out. [Jun 2009, p.118]
No Ripcord
Initial listens may lead you to believe it’s a little non-descript, but there’s reward in perseverance.
Read Full Review >Under The Radar
Stripped down to the bone, the tracks here reveal the chinks in Cocker's armor with gloriously broken results. [Summer 2009, p.65]
Rolling Stone
Produced by Steve Albini, Cocker's excellent second solo disc sets hilariously over-the-top come-ons to bruising garage rock and woozy soul.
Read Full Review >Dot Music
His solo follow-up, though, is a more personal affair, dissecting the onset of middle-age, physical decrepitude and the end-game of marriage (he split from his wife not long after finishing this).
Read Full Review >Tiny Mix Tapes
This newest Cocker incarnation restages this conflict in a way that establishes his continuing vitality and creativity and confirms that his sardonic wit has only sharpened with time.
Read Full Review >Pitchfork
While his songwriting remains funny and incisive at 45, ostensibly ballsier numbers like 'Fuckingsong' and 'Angela' veer dangerously close to bar-band boneheadedness.
Read Full Review >The Guardian
With Cocker frequently shouting to be heard over the rock racket, Further Complications is best when the music quietens, allowing the singer's glorious one-liners to be savoured.
Read Full Review >The New York Times
His new album, Further Complications--musically more immediate, lyrically more beleaguered--was engineered by Steve Albini, whose aesthetics dictate big drums, big guitars and small vocals. So Mr. Cocker is shouting to be heard, which only improves on his comic persona.
Read Full Review >Observer Music Monthly
This is a record that's more intriguing than entertaining. Cocker's warmth and wit are in short supply, as is the sweeter side of his melodic gifts.
Read Full Review >The Phoenix
The meta quality of the immoral, libidinous singer refracted through unblinking irony feels too transparent for a songwriter of Cocker's depth.
Read Full Review >NOW Magazine
His brilliant, whispery, Gainsbourgh-like vocal delivery is replaced by base shouting, his hilarious wordplay reduced to grating, beat-poet-like observations.
Read Full Review >Mojo
Much of it is unreconstructedly rockist. [Jun 20009, p.102]
What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this album is 8.2 (out of 10) based on 8 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Matthew O gave it an8:
Almost as great as his first solo album.
