Decca U.S.
2008
Hey Ma
About This Album
Seven years is not an extraordinarily long time between albums for bands in the new millennium (some bands take considerably longer), so only those who pay attention closely might realize that James split and reunited in the seven years separating 2001's Pleased to Meet You and 2008's Hey Ma. Apart from the lyrics -- the title track opens with an overt 9/11 reference, as Tim Booth sings "now the towers have fallen" -- Hey Ma is such an extension of the band's signature sound that it's possible to think no time has passed at all, yet that isn't quite accurate. Not that the band went out on a low note, but James do sound revitalized, energized by the time apart and, perhaps more importantly, sounding connected to the time at hand, making music for a world in turmoil that needs more voices of protest and hope. Parallels to the fledging years of James cannot be ignored, as the band came to be during the pre-Blair and pre-Clinton years of the '90s, when there was a serious strain of seriousness within rock & roll, thanks in part to the crusading of U2. James shook this stiffness a few years later when they collaborated heavily with Eno, but here they reconnect to the crusading spirit of their earliest work without abandoning the sonic adventure of their late-'90s albums.
Track List (try tracks 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 and 8)

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