Album Review: UNKLE - The Road: Part II / Lost Highway

For better or for worse (and he has been both), Mo’ Wax co-founder James Lavelle has always defiantly done things his way, balking at demands for more commitment to the genre that launched his career. Now with dozens of records on his resume, here we have only the sixth studio UNKLE album in 21 years, with UNKLE still as much a darkened canopy for Lavelle and his edgier friends. Welcomed to the party are Editors' Tom Smith (whose growl is a fine fit for the chiming The Other Side), QOTSA drummer Jon Theodore and a spoken word contribution from Scottish actor Brian Cox. 

This effort works better than its 2017 predecessor because everyone has been given more space. In the case of the gorgeous Long Gone, Tessa Angus’ elegiac vocals find strength in pain, as carried by perfectly metered piano and strings. Sure, Clash fans may be excited to spot Mick Jones’ name attached to Kubrick, but his contribution is subtly woven in. A kiss with the pop world comes at the end courtesy a full-bodied take on early '00s house classic Touch Me. For the first time in a while for UNKLE, the road ahead looks like it’s going somewhere.