Lloyd Cole ”Antidepressant” (One Little Indian)
The intimate scale and wry, self-effacing tone of ”Antidepressant” are a comfortable fit for Lloyd Cole, a singer-songwriter still best known as the frontman for the Commotions, a 1980’s Brit-rock band. It’s a mostly homemade effort — he recorded himself on piano, guitar and drums, and then added some guests — with lyrics that muse intelligently on the changes and challenges of middle age. Mr. Cole garnishes each song with a sprig of bittersweet humor: in ”The Young Idealists” he eulogizes the naivete of a generation that went ”raging through the coffee shops and bars” before they ”bought into the neo-con economic dream.”
And even as he paints psychologically detailed domestic portraits, he does a good job of undercutting his own narrative voice. ”With my medication, I will be fine,” he sings breezily in the title track, and it’s anyone’s guess how reassuring that line is really meant to be.
Publication: The New York Times
Publication date: 15/04/07