Cherwell - Oxford University student newspaper

Daniel Rolle reviews "The Hungry Saw".

Generally speaking, when musicians possess the boldness to start an album with an ambient, drifting first track, this often alludes to greatness. Unfortunately for Tindersticks’ latest album The Hungry Saw, this shimmer of audacity is shattered by the lift music which follows.

If my Uncle wrote doomed romance ballads – and for a greying Mortgage broker  with little-to-no musical talent, this would be quite something – it would probably sound almost as dire as Tindersticks.  

This is in no way music for the young (even of heart); if it is to be popular, it will become the steadfast favourite of the middle manager travelling in his Mondeo from his office in Basildon to the nut factory on Hull, a means through which to comfort his sense of failure and alienation. The Hungry Saw is an album which conjures up that gloomy feeling; the feeling when, as a child, you woke up on the morning of sports day, only to find the weather was miserable. In short, it is depressing and dull.

Of course this is a shame. No-one likes to see failure. Apparently Tindersticks are a fairly famous band.  All the same, before reviewing this album, I hadn’t heard of them.

This is probably a good thing. If The Hungry Saw is anything to go by, then listening to this band as a child would have had devastating consequences. I would have lost all drive and passion by the time I was seven.  

The band’s publicity people seem to be under the impression that the second track on the album, ‘Yesterday’s Tomorrow’, (what does that even mean?) ‘bursts out and hits you with the unabashed hunger of a forest fire’.  

Yes, perhaps.  But only insofar as it makes you want to gag, fear for your life and run away in a sickened frenzy.  This encapsulates the entire Tindersticks experience.

1 star out of 5 

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