Bryan Ferry: Olympia

Bryan Ferry
Olympia
Rating: Meh

A new album from rock legend Bryan Ferry is always something to anticipate, especially when it is his first since 2002's Frantic to feature original material.  With Olympia, Ferry returns, not so much at the top of his game, but hitting a nice stride utilizing his seductive tenor and atmospheric productions to mostly good effect.  Where he trips up is letting the atmosphere get a little too heavy at times, forgetting that sometimes less is more.

Olympia starts off strongly with his best single in years, "You Can Dance."



The song is sexy, and slinky, recounted the travails of a long night of clubbing.  The song teeters on the edge of being too full (really Bryan, do you need to have three bassists on the track when one would do?), but never falls off the fence.

Again, where he balances that line perfectly, it makes for some stunning music.  Whether it is the Euro-cool stylings of "Alphaville,"



or the almost harsh backbeats and rave synth grind of Groove Armada produced "Shameless"



Ferry shows he still knows how to pick a producer that accentuates his many talents.  Where he falters, is when he overshadows that bond, either with the pale and limp collaboration with Scissor Sisters, "Heartache By Numbers,"



or two completely horrendous and unnecessary covers.  The first is the overblown and overstuffed cover of Tim Buckley's "Song to the Siren" which This Mortal Coil covered to perfection with Elizabeth Frazier of the Cocteau Twins.  Here, Ferry appears to create a mashup of "Slave to Love" and "Avalon," and just keeps adding too much to a song that needs delicate backing.



Or the second cover, of Traffic's "No Face, No Name, Number," which slides along glacially on autopilot, with barely a pulse or heart.



By the time he gets to a more upbeat track, "BF Bass (Ode to Olympia)," featuring Flea on bass, it is almost too late to save the album, with the track beginning promisingly, then getting mired with too many female diva backing vocalist histrionics.



Finally, he returns to a more minimal palette on the final two songs, which redeems Olympia from being a total washout.  The atmospheric and textured "Reason or Rhyme," brings Ferry back to the grandeur of his days with Roxy Music.



And "Tender Is The Night," ends Ferry's dusk til dawn party going journey in a meditative place:



I really wanted to love Olympia and I have been torn back and forth between liking it and feeling indifferent to it.  Ferry has a lock on this sort of sound: the world-weary crooner, making it through another evening of parties in fabulous places, a La Dolce Vita for the 2000s.  He surrounded himself with a top notch group of producers (Dave Stewart, Brian Eno) and an amazing group of musicians (Flea, Mani, Johnny Greenwood, Phil Manzera, Scissor Sisters) and yet he made them all sound like session players.  Although the album is exquisitely produced and sounds great, it felt very paint by numbers.  I have heard all this before, ever since Ferry's classic album Boys and Girls,  and was really looking for him to stretch a bit and try something different.  With Olympia we get standard issue Bryan Ferry, which, like most fashions, will get you through a long stretch, but doesn't really stand out in the crowd.

Rating Guide

Chilfos: masterpiece; coolest thing I've heard in ages.

Woof Daddy: excellent; just a hair away from being a masterpiece.

Grrrr: very good; will definitely be considered for my top albums of the year.

Yeah Daddy Make Me Want It: good; definitely invites further listens and peaks one's interest for more material.

Meh: not horrible, but certainly not great; could have either been trimmed or polished.

Jeez Lady: what the hell happened? Just plain bad. They should hang their heads in shame and be forced to listen to Lady Gaga ad nauseam as penance.

Tragicistani: so bad, armed villagers with pitchforks and torches should run the artist out of the country for inflicting this abomination on the human race.