Review: Herbert - Scale (7.4)

Overall Rating: 7.4 Lyrics: 6.2 Melodies: 7.4 Arrangements: 9.4 Thematicity: 6.8 Originality: 7.2 Production: 9.8

Matthew Herbert's releases haven't recieved a great deal of recognition over the last five years or so, despite a steady output of records including Goodbye Swingtime and last year's Plat du Jour, but his engineering work on Roisin Murphy's solo debut Ruby Blue has once again placed him in the public eye. Sadly, there is a reason for this: Herbert is far more skilled as a producer than a songwriter, which is not to say that he can't pen a decent melody every once in while, but that his compositions generally employ production as a crutch to support lackluster lyrics and somewhat staid melodies. Until Scale, in fact, Herbert hadn't really tried to make songs as much as techno-influenced dance pieces, but on this latest effort he aims to create well-produced, high-quality radio-pop. The results are somewhat mixed: on the one hand, Herbert seems to have gotten exactly what he wanted; on the other, while the product is certainly a polished one, he continually succumbs to the worst tropes associated with the genre he's chosen to write in rather than attempting to push boundaries. Where Scale could have benefitted from incisive, empowering lyrics and the emotive power of well-delivered soul vocals, it settles for half-hearted, regurgitated platitudes and stock phrases which hardly ever come across as truly sincere. Still, by any measure it represents Herbert's best engineering job yet, and an innovative array of horns, beeps, drones, and God-knows-what-else (you can survey the album art and infer what's going on if you're interested) keeps even the most banal tracks at least somewhat interesting.

The biggest problem with Scale is lyrical: Dani Siciliano has a good, well-controlled voice, and while she's not Roisin Murphy, her articulation (which, all things considered, is not bad) is certainly far from problematic. If anything, it's the trip she has to sing that trips Siciliano up, and to be fair, it's doubtful whether anybody could have brought to life such lifeless material. Furthermore, while the minute nuances of Herbert's production are captivating, on a macroscopic scale (say, that of an entire song), the variety disappears, and most tracks sound exceedingly repetitive. There are a couple of songs, namely "Harmonise" and "Movie Star" which manage to sound fresh, but these two suffer from another problem entirely. As with Phil Spector's "girl group" recordings, it's hard not to see much of the lyrical content on Scale as unironically misogynist, and when it's not clear where lines like "what is it you'd have me do?" and "direct me in it" (from "Movie Star") or the artfully "censored" opening portion of "Those Feelings" are coming from, its hard not to interpret Siciliano's voice as a mouthpiece through which Herbert can air stereotypical male fantasies. Even if this isn't the case, there's nothing at all in the lyrics to suggest any sort of personal touch from either of the two, of from anybody for that matter, except on "Wrong," which is only barely on key for that reason slightly obnoxious. "Moving Like a Train" says nothing, "The Movers and the Shakers" dabbles unsuccessfully in political commentary and throws in some uninspired Bush-bashing (which, again, everybody seems to be into these days). Matthew Herbert's programming, sampling (including myriad clever touches like the falling ice-cube sound at the opening of "Those Feelings"), and orchestration does in many ways make up for it, but I really can't see myself listening to Scale for enjoyment, but rather to see if I can glean any technical ideas from it. Yes, as a technical manual it's one of the most brilliant records ever made, but as a set of songs (and that's really all it is: there's not much connectivity between them) it's only passable, and without his engineering work, it would be nothing more than elevator music.

-BT