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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
The third album proper from the most inventive British band of the past five years, In Our Gun is bang on target and brilliantly off kilter. Gomez create new musical hybrids every time they hunker down in the musical laboratory. Since emerging from Southport with the Mercury Prize-winning debut Bring It On in 1998, the self-produced five-piece have created their own rules. What's miraculous about their follow up to Liquid Skin is that it manages to advance on the manic diversity of its predecessors. Gomez are a unique band--they have three distinctive vocalists in Ben Ottewell, Ian Ball and Tom Gray and an ever fizzling chemistry where every member is made to count. The resulting emotional and musical palette is vast, encompassing epic grandeur and lucid intimacy; tenderness and anger. A quick check of their armoury reveals Beefheart-ian blues, a beautifully cantankerous horn section, Mariachi melodies, euphoric harmony vocals, blasting hip-hop beats, slide guitar that sounds like it's come up the Mersey via the Mississippi... and that's just for starters. Resistance to their Gun is futile, but rest assured surrender is bliss. --Gavin Martin
Review
Gomez have in the last three years managed to stay ahead of the pack by dint of their very unclassifiable nature. A few sad hacks have labelled them 'progressive' for the simple crime of daring to change time signatures mid-song once in a while and displaying a (healthy) propensity for multi-instrumentalism. Yet despite such slurs here they are with their third album proper. Yes, the difficult third album, but is three the magic number?
Things get cracking with the single "Shot Shot", a rumbling two chord knockabout that departs almost as soon as it arrives leaving you breathless and expectant. Unfortunately that's exactly how you remain until the end of the album. Two and a half years down the line from Liquid Skin the sound is fuller. Headphone-level examination reveals plenty under the bonnet; bubbling electronics, grainy loops (check the wonderful harp sample on "Rex Kramer") and a lusher harmonic sense all point to a painstaking attention to production details, and herein lies the problem. Rough and ready experimentation has been replaced by smoother and safer approaches. The song-structure, while tighter, never throws up enough new surprises to make this anything other than "the new Gomez album".
Wonderful melodies abound (the title track is heart-stoppingly gorgeous; all Nick Drake meets Portishead), yet you long for the by-numbers grooviness of tracks like "Ping One Down" and "Army Dub" to somehow break out and grab your attention. Gomez lyrics, like their titles, always had an air of private stoner jokes that exclude outside probing and it's one bad habit they've failed to break. "Mile End" is one particular offender while with "Detroit Swing 66", they've managed to do what was previously unthinkable: make an irritating and trite noise. It all feels too familiar.
This is by no means a bad album. Previous efforts have merely raised our expectations so high as to always make this a tricky number to pull off. New elements such as the meckanische electronics point to great things to come, and the closer "Ballad Of Nice And Easy " is a joyous slice of Allman Brothers-styled southern rock. Also Ben Otterwell's voice is always going to be a thing of beauty; an instrument that bears the weight of years yet to be experienced. Maybe too long was taken over this album. Gomez have not only given us more of the same but seem to have given us more of a work in progress and, while ability is incredibly high, the results often fall short of the promise. Just don't give up on them yet. --Chris Jones
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
Bring It On was an incredible introduction to Gomez with its quirky ups and downs and spine-tingling Ottewell vocals. Liquid Skin was a great follow-up with Gomez bringing on the long jams. With In Our Gun, Gomez shows us how well they can clean-up.
The songs are so tight and pieced together perfectly that you can listen to "Sound of Sounds" over and over for the harmonies as much as you want--it doesn't drag on and ends where it should. There is no need to put your finger on the fast forward button here. The same goes for every other song on the album. "Army Dub" gets your heart pounding and imbeds the melody in your brain for the following 72 hours. How many more times can I listen to "Rex Kramer?"
Being a Gomez loyal, I've been foaming at the mouth for something new and the wait was completely worth it. Nonstop listening has been my guilty pleasure since I got it. (Now if I could only see them live.)
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
You can tell Gomez are at least one of the best British bands around because their fans are almost always bordering fanatical, and because they so divide the British music press, many claiming how boring and unoriginal they are. And whilst Thom Yorke and co. spend much time telling the music press how little they care about the music press, Gomez let actions speak louder than words and concentrate on the music.
And so I write this review as one of those borderline fanatical fans, one year on from it's release and the first thing to say is how different it is from the other two.
Starting positively, their is a lot more in the mix this time than before. Whilst blues and harmonies still hold center stage as before, they're having to share the limelight much more with beats and electronica. It's not as laid back as bring it on or liquid skin, and has more immediacy and urgency than either it's predecessors. Sadly, I also feel it lacks the togetherness and the slow-burner feel of the previous two as a result. To sum up, the track listing is longer but the running time is shorter.
The album starts fantastically with shot shot, a heady brew of all things Gomez compressed into 2 minutes and held together by a simple guitar riff. From then on the album switches between tracks of traditional Gomez (Even song, Mile's end), wierd new poppish electronica (Army Dub, Ruff Stuff) and some hybrid of the two. It is the latter that works best and the album does contain amongst the best Gomez songs to date. Rex Kramer is a standout track, Ben Ottewell singing a classic Gomez melody over alternating electronic backing and guitar line which builds brilliantly verse by verse. Ping one down is very good as well, built on similar foundations. The euphoric harmonies of Drench and Sound of Sounds are in my opinion the best new addition to the Gomez arsenal, and other stand outs inlcude In Our Gun (what a baseline) and balad of Nice and Easy.
However an album is more than just the sum of it's parts and this is missing something that I feel the other two had. It is still one of the albums of the year and one for all the fans, but not their best offering to date. I love the blues so will name Even song as my favourite track and go and listen to Bring it on. "I love this city, but this city's killing me..."
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
The way this seems to go is - you either love Gomez's old stuff, and hate this because you feel that this is a departure,
or, you love Gomez's old stuff and feel that this is the next logical step.
I'm in the latter category - all the albums before (even the b-sides and oddities) were just brilliant - but all the ideas on Gun are there - the electronica, drum machine etc. There's nothing massively new in this. It's more catchy, definitely, and possibly the grit has gone from the earlier recordings, but as far as dragging guitar music into the present is concerned, Gomez are peerless (maybe Radiohead are up there, but they're using fewer and fewer guitars all the time).
Every track on this album drips with feeling, soul, intelligence and warmth. Not to say that the mood isn't varied, because it runs the gamut.
Simply - if you like soulful but modern music, then this is a great antidote to the terrible, TERRIBLE bland r&b dross which seems to permeate modern music...
or, you love Gomez's old stuff and feel that this is the next logical step.
I'm in the latter category - all the albums before (even the b-sides and oddities) were just brilliant - but all the ideas on Gun are there - the electronica, drum machine etc. There's nothing massively new in this. It's more catchy, definitely, and possibly the grit has gone from the earlier recordings, but as far as dragging guitar music into the present is concerned, Gomez are peerless (maybe Radiohead are up there, but they're using fewer and fewer guitars all the time).
Every track on this album drips with feeling, soul, intelligence and warmth. Not to say that the mood isn't varied, because it runs the gamut.
Simply - if you like soulful but modern music, then this is a great antidote to the terrible, TERRIBLE bland r&b dross which seems to permeate modern music...
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
the development continues
Why do so many people criticise this album? It is not the same as their stunning debut and follow up, Bring It On and Liquid Skin. But who wants a third album of the same? Read more
Published on 18 Aug 2004 by "dr_blood"
Universe Reverse
It's postulated that once the Universe stops expanding, it will start contracting and that Time itself will start running backwards. Read more
Published on 9 July 2004 by Captain Cook
Change is NOT a bad thing!
Just wanted to say that if you like the first two albums, but have put off buying this album, DON'T BE! Read more
Published on 22 Feb 2003 by Md Francis
:(
As a huge gomez fan, i was bitterly disapointed by this album. In my opinion the factors making gomez great and musically interesting were their shuffling and creative drumming,... Read more
Published on 16 Jan 2003 by "theskyistoohigh"
Blown away
I really like Gomez. There's something irrisistable about a home-grown band that critics dislike, but still play great music in spite of it. Read more
Published on 3 Nov 2002 by "parsefone"
Top Notch!
The best British album in terms of concept, originality & application since Abbey Road. One of the few experimental/exploratory albums that actually totally succeeds. Read more
Published on 18 Sep 2002 by the gypsy king
Rise In Our Estimation
Gomez didn't exactly blow me away with their last album, let's just say that it subtley found its way into my Discman more often than not. Read more
Published on 26 Jun 2002
Gomez - Everyones New(ish) Favourite Band
Yes Yes Yes we all know Bring it on was brilliant (although it does seem that everyone feels obliged to say that as it won the Mercury Prize Oooo! Read more
Published on 17 May 2002 by nickorr24@hotmail.com
Ignore the press, this is amazing!!
Welcome back to Gomez who have returned with their best album yet. It is a dramatic departure from what went before, but they have reinvented themselves in spectacular fashion. Read more
Published on 17 May 2002
IGNORE ALL CRITICS
Ok so I am biased. Gomez do for me what no band has done since REM in the 80`s (Murmur, green etc)
because the songs really reach places that most of todays bands cannot... Read more
because the songs really reach places that most of todays bands cannot... Read more
Published on 14 May 2002 by steve.eyre@ntlworld.com
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