Tindersticks Albums (7)
'The Hungry Saw'
Release Date 4/25/2008
Tracks 13
Label Beggars Banquet
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What The Critics Say
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. ~ Tim Sendra, All Music Guide
'Can Our Love...'
Release Date 5/14/2001
Tracks 8
Label Beggars Banquet
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What The Critics Say
A new label and a renewed sense of collaboration between the members of one of England's finest has resulted in Can Our Love, the loosest record yet in Tindersticks' decade-long existence. Here, they've lost all remaining self-consciousness. The listener is all the better for it. This lack of self-consciousness is the good kind -- the kind derived from locking into place and letting things come naturally, chucking any degree of preconception out of the window. Between the spare instrumentation, crepuscular tempos, and somber coursing of Stuart Staples' voice throughout "Can Our Love" and "No Man in the World," one wouldn't have to be too inebriated to mistake parts of the album for Sam Cooke's Night Beat played at the wrong speed. On "People Keep Comin' Around," perhaps their best moment yet, it sounds as if they heard the Doors' "Riders on the Storm" and decided to speed up the tempo a notch and strip away the false dramatics, fashioning it into a seven-minute pearl custom fit for '70s soul radio. "Chilitetime" may not be a medley containing parts of "Have You Seen Her?" or "Are You My Woman?," but it's another extended slow dazzle warbler that doesn't outstay its welcome. And if "Dying Slowly" and "Don't Ever Get Tired" ring of garden variety quality, you're taking them for granted. There's no use in going into further detail -- all the proper ingredients are in full effect. ~ Andy Kellman, All Music Guide
'Trouble Every Day'
Release Date 1/1/2001
Tracks 14
Label Beggars Banquet
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What The Critics Say
With Trouble Every Day, Stuart Staples and company enter into a creative partnership with director Claire Denis for the second time. Their first collaboration on Ms. Denis' Nenette et Boni was a striking enough success to get the soundtrack released stateside, despite the fact that there was only one vocal track on it. The rest featured Tindersticks playing a graceful and warm version of chamber jazz and serial music. As a film, Trouble Every Day is a very different animal than its predecessor. The subject matter here deals with a woman who picks up various men, has relations with them, and then, er, eats them. The film caused dozens to walk out of the Cannes Film Festival in disgust for its graphic depictions of sex, violence, and cannibalism. Tindersticks add plenty of weight to Ms. Denis' film with a score that is alternately elegant, lush, dark, and subtly moving. There is great tenderness in this music as it goes about reflecting on the scenes inside the film, and as an album it holds up on its own as a largely instrumental, string-laden, moody meditation on unrequited, ravenous love. There is no rock & roll to speak of on this set; this is Tindersticks' alter ego, their grand classical and impressionist jazz pretensions realized with grace and aplomb, and their twin fascination with Debussy and Gil Evans given utterance. This is a gorgeous record, with a couple of takes of the film's theme song that are worth the price of the album for Staples' luxuriantly despondent vocals, and ironically, the masterful restraint Tindersticks manage to exercise when employing their instrumental excesses in the cinema. This music is beautiful enough to stand alone. ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
'Simple Pleasure'
Release Date 1/1/1999
Tracks 9
Label Quicksilver/Island
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What The Critics Say
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. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
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. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
'Nenette Et Boni (Sdtk)'
Release Date 1/1/1996
Tracks 14
Label This Way Up
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What The Critics Say
The plot of the 1996 film, Nénette et Boni, from French screenwriter and director Claire Denis, involves the rather downhearted premise of a 14-year-old girl who is in serious need of an attitude adjustment; she's also pregnant and runs away from her boarding school only to end up at the door of her preoccupied brother, who is fixated on the baker's seductive wife. As if that convoluted scenario was not melancholy enough, the soundtrack to the film, the subject matter of which is quite befitting a sort of downcast pop sound, was appropriately turned over to eternal-depressives, Tindersticks. It was a perfect marriage. Of course, the soundtrack is not exactly a normal Tindersticks album; in some senses it is a radical departure. The obvious difference is that the album mostly lacks the bizarrely beautiful Leonard Cohen-on-valium croon of Stuart Staples (present only on the gorgeous "Petites Gouttes d'Eau"), and so some of their usual somber romanticism is inevitably lost. Also, not all of the individual pieces on the album are full-fledged songs, which is understandable given the album's primary responsibility as incidental music. Its tone is far less varied than normal, with some of the same instrumental themes and eerie piano chords reappearing throughout this release on various songs. It certainly lends consistency to the listening experience, but listeners also can't help but feel a sense of musical déjà vu at certain points along the journey. That doesn't keep Nénette et Boni from being entirely sensual and seductive, however, and in a stately, continental sort of way. It's a truly gorgeous piece of work, with the same lulling, shimmering, melancholy sheen that characterizes every Tindersticks album; together, the songs seem like a delusory, synesthetic oasis of sound. The music is absolutely sweeping at times, with string arrangements occasionally insinuating their way into a song almost as if from somewhere outside the piece. At other times, the music takes on a dark, insular complexion and vibe. Tindersticks can be simply creepy at times, as on "La Mort de Félix," but for the most part, their work here maintains enveloping, organic warmth, even when the sentiments are downhearted or chilling. ~ Stanton Swihart, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
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. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Music Guide
