Chicane - Thousand Mile Stare Mp3

Effectively Chicane trying to do a Sigur Rós record.

While generally the idea of Nick finally doing a more laidback, atmospheric album again is something I was wanting for some time, sadly what we have here doesn't really sound like Chicane - between the Sigur Rós cover, soundalike collaborators Vigri, and several other SR-esque pieces laden with glockenspiels and reverby soaring vocals, Nick seems to want to hide his own musical identity and pretend to be someone else.

The occasional attempts to relive past glories are similarly disappointing - Playing Fields is effectively No Ordinary Morning without the charm or the feeling, and the few more trance-oriented tracks sadly feature the same slick, lifeless bank of sounds Bracegirdle has been using since the mid '00s (and continues to do so today). Going Deep, although utterly awful, I can at least respect as an example of him trying something different - but it's so laughably out of place on this album that I can't work out why it wasn't one of his many non-album singles.

Windbreaks and Flotsum & Jetsum are certainly nice pieces in their own right, and are worth checking out for people wanting something vaguely in the same league as the first two Chicane albums, but sadly in his first non-pop album for 12 years, Nick Bracegirdle disappoints once more. Certainly he retains a sizeable and passionate fanbase, but for those hoping to recapture the magic of those early years, that hope is fading fast.

The artwork is a copy of Jean-Michel Jarre's "Magnetic Fields".... embarrasing !