If I ever noticed young British singer-songwriter Patrick Wolf before this year, no doubt I glossed over his foppish, overdressed appearance, dismissed the British press hullabaloo about his sexuality, and then forgot he’d ever existed. But I heard it at our local rock music club and was immensely attracted to the overblown synth-pop overlaid with strings. I remember thinking: ELO, Duran Duran, Bowie. The tracks off his fourth album, The Bachelor, that I listened to that night – driving, Brian-Ferry-ish ‘Hard Times,’ lush, windswept ‘Damaris,’ and crooning, dandyish ‘Theseus’ (with Tilda Swinton doing voice-over reprises!) – turn out to be the highlights but the rest is pretty damned good too. Even the dance-floor tracks like the single ‘Vulture’ are fun to listen to. My earlier reference to Duran Duran, the much-mocked pop band from my youth, is deliberate – this is pop but mightily proficient and adventurous pop. Wolf is not afraid to sprinkle his songs with synth sounds more at home in ambient records, in fact he’s not scared of any stylistics at all. What carries his songs through all that pomp are decent melodies and wonderful, mannered vocals.
If you still have a pop heart, but haven’t lost your brain to Idol TV trash, The Bachelor is a weird but definitely worthwhile release to consider.