The Charlatans – We Are Love (BMG) (13th Floor Album Review)
The Charlatans have returned with their 14th album, We Are Love, after an eight-year hiatus. The core question: Was it worth the wait?
My history with The Charlatans is minimal—a brief listen years ago when free music was a novelty, not an avalanche. Approaching this album in today’s limitless landscape, I listened with zero investment, aiming for pure objectivity.
Tim Burgess, a famously cool cat who connected people during lockdown with his album listening parties, leads a band that’s been around since the days of The Stone Roses and Happy Mondays. Their history is stained with loss, a theme that surfaces immediately.
Kingdom of Ours starts the album on a brooding, lyrical note, setting a mournful agenda with references to a lost band member: this world couldn’t hold you / it just reached out and took you. The title track, We Are Love, follows as a solid, catchy single anchored by a cool electric and acoustic guitar motif.
From there, however, the momentum stalls. A large patch of the album drifts into a safe, mid-tempo “meh.” While Deeper and Deeper offers a welcome respite—its retro Hammond organ grounding one of the catchiest moments—Burgess’s reliably solid voice and the accompanying music drift toward platitudes rather than praise.
Then, I stumble across what might be a gateway.
Out On Our Own is a brilliant track. Beginning with a fantastic bassline and Burgess intoning, If I expect less / I get more, the song finally shifts tempo at the two-minute mark into a driving motor-rock groove. Bingo! This track is the Kool-Aide to the album proper and maybe even the band itself. It’s the one song that made me want to go back and actively re-listen to the rest. Maybe I had found the key to what all the fuss is about? Maybe.
The album tidily finishes with Now Everything, a psychedelic mantra designed for arms-aloft concert finales.
Ultimately, We Are Love didn’t entirely convert me. The songs often bleed into one, reminding me of a possibly unfair jab I made to a mate about troubadour Jack Johnson: if you like one of his songs, you like them all. Despite production help from names like Blood Orange and Stephen Street, the record on the whole struggles to come alive for my ears save a couple of moments.
Whether you’re already a believer or someone new to the world of The Charlatans like myself will greatly influence how you feel about this release. Those in the former camp will no doubt stand and rejoice, those in the later may well just keep walking by.
Rob Jones
We Are Love is out now via BMG
