After eighteen years, they still soldier on... After a somewhat revised version of Tindersticks broke their five-year recording silence with 1998's The Hungry Saw, it took less than two years for the group (again with a few modifications to the lineup) to compound that successful return with another new album -- their eighth overall -- which stands as perhaps even more of an achievement and pleasant surprise than its very fine predecessor. While Saw offered a few rare glimmers of positivity and sweetness from Stuart Staples and company, it was essentially business as usual for the perennially moody Britons. Falling Down a Mountain isn't exactly a major reinvention, either, but it does back up the golden-hued sky gracing its cover with some of their most upbeat and optimistic songs to date (keep in mind those are relative terms), and a liberal extension of the looseness they've been gradually settling into since 1999's Simple Pleasure. The six-and-a-half minute title track is immediately striking, with its simmering, asymmetrical, jazzy groove buoying a hypnotically simple vocal riff and some uninhibited soloing from trumpeter Terry Edwards. "Harmony Around My Table" is a bouncy soul-pop number that might hardly be recognizable as Tindersticks if not for Staples' inimitable quavering baritone (as always, an acquired taste, like fine wine), while the low-key lovers' duet "Peanuts" sports a charmingly simple, slightly silly lyric, and the twinkling ballad "Keep You Beautiful," though a typically mellow affair, is uncharacteristically, almost achingly sweet. Elsewhere, the album takes on a vaguely Western tinge (again echoing the dusty cover landscape), with the galloping, lustful "She Rode Me Down," Edwards' lonesome flügelhorn on the Morricone-esque instrumental "Hubbard Hills," and the gritty, downright driving "Black Smoke." Eventually -- this being Tindersticks, after all -- the darkness does creep in: the deceptively buoyant "No Place So Alone" seethes with the jealousy of a jilted lover, and by the penultimate "Factory Girls," we find Staples brooding alone, doused in melancholy, feebly asserting that "it's the wine that makes me sad, not the love I never had." It's a typically mournful, typically lovely Tindersticks moment, made all the more exquisite here in contrast to the increased stylistic range that came before it. Sometimes, it just takes a slight change in scenery to help you appreciate what you've always had.

1. "Falling Down A Mountain" - 6:33
2. "Keep You Beautiful" - 3:23
3. "Harmony Around My Table" - 5:06
4. "Peanuts" - 4:37
5. "She Rode Me Down" - 3:18
6. "Hubbards Hills" - 3:04
7. "Black Smoke" - 3:43
8. "No Place So Alone" - 3:12
9. "Factory Girls" - 5:55
10. "Piano Music" - 5:46

If you were of the opinion that Tindersticks may have gone through some kind of drastic sea change brought on by their five-year hiatus and the absence of founding member and co- architect of their trademark sound, Dickon Hinchliffe, you are dead wrong. The band weathered the storm and on their seventh studio album, The Hungry Saw, the three remaining members of the band retain every last aspect of what made the band special (the inventive arrangements, the cinematic sweep of the songs, Stuart Staples' distinctive vocals) but also manage to sound rejuvenated and fresh at the same time. The last album they made before their split, Waiting for the Moon, seemed like it was just another in a long line of excellent releases by the band. The Hungry Saw is hungrier, more dramatic, and if not exactly urgent, it feels like the work of a band with something to prove. Staples, in particular, brings something extra to both his vocals (clearer than usual and with more bite) and lyrics ("The Hungry Saw" has some of his most powerfully visceral words to date). It is one of his best performances in a long career full of them. The arrangements too are given extra care. The horn arrangements by longtime associate Terry Edwards are superb and the strings sound rich and suitably dramatic on the heavy ballads and breezy on the light ones. The addition of Suzanne Osborne's wordless backing vocals on the lovely and harrowing "All the Love" are a welcome touch of sunshine too. As is the candy sweet melody and acoustic strum of the almost poppy "Boobar Come Back to Me." Not that the record is a smile fest by any stretch, there is still enough chill blowing through it to make your teeth hurt. It wouldn't be a Tindersticks record without that, and songs like "The Other Side of This World" and "Mother Dear" have enough sadness coursing through them to satisfy the needs of any gloom junky who has come to count on the band for a quick fix. Indeed, Tindersticks have never failed to satisfy anyone looking not only for sadness but also those looking for albums that make you feel and songs that will stick with you for a long time. The Hungry Saw is classic Tindersticks.

1. "Introduction" - 3:32
2. "Yesterdays Tomorrows" - 3:49
3. "The Flicker of a Little Girl" - 3:30
4. "Come Feel the Sun" - 2:28
5. "E-Type" - 2:54
6. "The Other Side of the World" - 4:12
7. "The Organist Entertains" - 2:33
8. "The Hungry Saw" - 3:46
9. "Mother Dear" - 4:19
10. "Boobar Come Back to Me" - 3:58
11. "All the Love" - 4:53
12. "The Turns We Took" - 8:01

The fact that Waiting for the Moon isn't much more than another addition to Tindersticks' discography will be enough to keep the devout fans pleased. At this stage in the band's existence, it is mightily impressive that a mediocre record has yet to slip out of the den. However, neither this nor Can Our Love... threatens, at any point, to rival Simple Pleasure -- let alone anything that preceded it. Apart from the increased vocal presence of arranger and multi-instrumentalist Dickon Hinchcliffe, who provides a much-needed bittersweetness to counter Stuart Staples' familiar warble, there's not much to add apart from the fact that numerous dimensions from the band's past are sprinkled throughout. So, even more so than before, the casual fans will have difficulty pinning down the minor differences and developments that distinguish this album from the one that came before it. "Say Goodbye to the City," similar to the most fiery moments of the band's first record, builds a dramatic, storming rush of rumbling rhythm, blaring guitars, droning strings, and demented Tijuana brass. Just the same, "4.48 Psychosis" is a noisily agitated spoken word piece that gleans from Sarah Kane's same-named play. Though "Sometimes It Hurts," an elegant duet with Lhasa de Sala, makes the album seem all the more like a trip through the past, the still-present soul influences that ran through the previous two albums seem more like a logical extension. Few bands can get away with being in a holding pattern like Tindersticks. When they remain this potent -- indicated from the very first lines of the album, "My hands 'round your throat/If I kill you now, well, they'll never know" -- it's all but impossible to wish for the band's end.

1. "Until the Morning Comes" – 3:34
2. "Say Goodbye to the City" – 4:30
3. "Sweet Memory" – 4:29
4. "4.48 Psychosis" – 5:13
5. "Waiting for the Moon" – 2:51
6. "Trying to Find a Home" – 5:44
7. "Sometimes It Hurts" – 4:39
8. "My Oblivion" – 7:00
9. "Just a Dog" – 3:28
10. "Running Wild" – 4:14

'Can Our Love...' reeks of mouldy Stax LPs and Staples even allows himself a not entirely ridiculous Isaac-Hayes-style spoken intro on 'No Man In The World'. So have they allowed themselves to be consumed by joy in their darkest hour? No. C'mon, this is the Tindersticks.

"Can our love grow any further?" asks Staples on the title track. For an Al Green or a Marvin Gaye that would be a statement
of pure elation but for the 'Sticks, it's a mournful reading of an emotional bank statement - 'that's our love? That's all there is.'

The same old sombre samba, perhaps, but with a renewed sense of direction, it's threatening to take them somewhere fantastic. "We never understood what we had, never knew how to deal with it", mumbles Staples on 'No Man In The World'. 'Can Our Love...' is proof that the Tindersticks will never make that mistake again.

1. "Dying Slowly" – 4:36
2. "People Keep Comin' Around" – 7:11
3. "Tricklin'" – 2:15
4. "Can Our Love..." – 5:57
5. "Sweet Release" – 8:55
6. "Don't Ever Get Tired" – 3:07
7. "No Man in the World" – 6:06
8. "Chilitetime" – 7:34

With a title like Simple Pleasure and songs like the disarmingly up-tempo opener "Can We Start Again?," at first listen Tindersticks' fourth proper album seems buoyed by a guarded optimism totally absent from previous outings; dig deeper, however, and it's all a come-on -- frontman Stuart Staples still inhabits a netherworld where nothing is ever simple, pleasure is an illusion, and starting again merely means making the same mistakes yet one more time. Nothing truly changes, which has been Tindersticks' point all along, of course -- hopes are still meant to be dashed and hearts still meant to be broken, and Simple Pleasure is neither the time nor the place to begin pretending otherwise. Staples' songs remain the very essence of romantic despair, stunning in their funereal beauty and devastating in their tormented desperation; likewise, much of the record prowls familiar musical ground, although "Before You Close Your Eyes," "I Know That Loving," and the closing "CF GF" all draw heavily on long-simmering soul and gospel influences, while the disc's highlight, the achingly gorgeous "If You're Looking for a Way Out," transforms Odyssey's 1980 disco hit into a ballad of surprising tenderness. That same tenderness colors much of Simple Pleasure, in fact, making it not only Tindersticks' most giving record, but also their most poignant, revealing a vulnerability even the bravest face can't mask.

1. "Can We Start Again?" – 3:51
2. "If You're Looking for a Way Out" – 5:06
3. "Pretty Words" – 3:18
4. "From the Inside" – 2:54
5. "If She's Torn" – 5:43
6. "Before You Close Your Eyes" – 6:15
7. "(You Take) This Heart of Mine" – 4:23
8. "I Know That Loving" – 5:48
9. "CF GF" – 6:10

Curtains finds Tindersticks exploring the same dark, string-drenched territory as their first two albums, and while it shares a surface similarity with its predecessors, there are subtle differences that make it a rewarding listen. The tone of Curtains is slightly brighter than that of the second album, with the songs unfolding into lush, affecting laments that recall Scott Walker at his finest. Though the sound is seductive, what is most impressive about Curtains is the songwriting. The Tindersticks have become more assured writers, letting the songs gradually develop into intimate epics. Stuart Staples' lyrics are similarly textured and subtle, with alternating layers of pathos and humor. Curtains, in many ways, functions as the culmination of what the Tindersticks set out to accomplish with their first two albums, and the results are appropriately stunning.

1. "Another Night In" – 5:11
2. "Rented Rooms" – 5:12
3. "Don't Look Down" – 4:18
4. "Dick's Slow Song" – 4:09
5. "Fast One" – 1:52
6. "Ballad of Tindersticks" – 7:37
7. "Dancing" – 2:56
8. "Let's Pretend" – 3:21
9. "Desperate Man" – 3:21
10. "Buried Bones" – 4:03
11. "Bearsuit" – 2:11
12. "(Tonight) Are You Trying to Fall in Love Again" – 3:07
13. "I Was Your Man" – 3:39
14. "Bathtime" – 4:03
15. "Walking" – 5:25

Tindersticks' second consecutive, eponymously titled double-LP set refines the approach of their debut; while every bit as ambitious and adventuresome, it achieves an even greater musical balance, stretching into luxuriously long compositional structures and more intricate arrangements. While Stuart Staples' songs remain as obsessive and haunted as before, he wards off his demons with fits of pitch-black humor (the narrative "My Sister") and a more tender perspective; similarly, while his funereal vocals remain the focus, there's a new reliance on extended instrumental passages, and even a pair of duets (the centerpiece, "Travelling Light" -- a gorgeous collaboration with the Walkabouts' Carla Torgerson -- is akin to a Lee Hazlewood and Nancy Sinatra record trapped in emotional purgatory). Another awesome triumph of mood and atmosphere.

1. "El Diablo En El Ojo" – 3:32
2. "A Night In" – 6:25
3. "My Sister" – 8:11
4. "Tiny Tears" – 5:45
5. "Snowy in F♯ Minor" – 2:28
6. "Seaweed" – 5:14
7. "Vertrauen II" – 3:19
8. "Talk To Me" – 5:00
9. "No More Affairs" – 3:49
10. "Singing" – 0:57
11. "Travelling Light" – 4:51
12. "Cherry Blossoms" – 4:19
13. "She's Gone" – 3:29
14. "Mistakes" – 5:44
15. "Vertrauen III" – 2:20
16. "Sleepy Song" – 4:37

A thrilling, revelatory debut, Tindersticks is a chamber pop masterpiece of romantic elegance and gutter debauchery. Within the framework of a remarkably consistent and mesmerizingly dank atmosphere, the group covers a stunning amount of ground -- "Her" is a crashing flamenco number, "The Walt Blues" is a tipsy organ instrumental, and "Paco de Renaldo's Dream" is an impenetrable cinematic monologue punctuated by subdued guitars, pianos, and strings. Stuart Staples' bacchanalian songs are obsessed with fluids, both bodily ("Blood," "Jism") and otherwise ("Nectar," "Whiskey and Water," "Raindrops"); no topic is too personal or too disturbing -- "Piano Song" is frightening in its callousness, while "City Sickness" is an unflinching examination of emotional and physical desperation. Fascinatingly constructed and strikingly ambitious, Tindersticks is insidiously labyrinthine: the music speaks softly but carries tremendous weight, and its hold grows more and more unbreakable with each listen.

1. "Nectar" – 2:40
2. "Tyed" – 4:11
3. "Sweet, Sweet Man Pt. 1" – 0:41
4. "Whiskey and Water" – 5:51
5. "Blood" – 4:52
6. "City Sickness" – 4:00
7. "Patchwork" – 4:40
8. "Marbles" – 4:30
9. "The Walt Blues" – 1:08
10. "Milky Teeth" – 2:52
11. "Sweet, Sweet Man Pt. 2" – 1:05
12. "Jism" – 6:03
13. "Piano Song" – 2:40
14. "Tie-Dye" – 4:00
15. "Raindrops" – 6:15
16. "Sweet, Sweet Man Pt. 3" – 1:44
17. "Her" – 3:29
18. "Tea Stain" – 2:07
19. "Drunk Tank" – 4:44
20. "Paco de Renaldo's Dream" – 4:22
21. "The Not Knowing" – 4:58