Howard Devoto - Jerky Versions Of The Dream

Art school rock running a term too long

EMI’s recent remasters of Devoto’s classic Magazine albums are followed here with his only solo record, complete with the single version of its highlight track, Rainy Season, B-sides and a three-track Peel session.

Appropriately enough, given its status as Devoto’s ‘lost’ album, this was originally intended to be a concurrent release with the Magazine discs, though it’s been delayed until now. That’s probably just as well, as it displays little of the panoramic vision painted across his earlier career, despite the involvement of ex-Magazine colleagues Barry Adamson and Dave Formula, and essentially cowers in the shadow of the majestic Real Life.

Rainy Season aside, Jerky… is a tepid account of a brilliantly inventive mind going off the boil – Cold Imagination according to the unfortunately prophetic title track. Perhaps suffering from a lack of creative spontaneity, having been two years in the gestation, this feels largely overworked and overthought. Despite his understated comebacks, first with Luxuria and more recently on the Buzzkunst collaboration with Pete Shelley, Jerky Versions Of The Dream is essentially an disappointingly offkey and underwhelming sign-off that hasn’t stood the test of time remotely as well as Devoto’s earlier work.

2 stars 2 stars

Virgin/EMI | CDVR 2272

Reviewed by Ian Abrahams
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