‘Figurines’ is the new long player from Detroit’s CHRIS MOORE, an as yet relatively unknown solo musician (on this side of the pond at least). Moore’s story seems ever so slightly familiar; he’s not ‘new’ at all – this is his fourth solo record and what’s more he was once part of a semi-successful hardcore band (called Negative Approach). Anyway, he decided to turn his back on all that bluster and punkery and sometime between then and, um, now, dusted off his acoustic guitar and started making stripped-down folky records, thus blighting himself forevermore with the dreaded label known as 'singer/ songwriter.'
But here’s some fantastically good news for you – 'Figurines' IS NOT the usual angst filled, ex-girlfriend/parent/self lambasting downer from some poor soul with a bedroom and a four-track tape-recorder. 'Figurines' IS a reminder that this type of music can be both mellow and uplifting, it’s a meandering account of everything and nothing from a creative mind who clearly knows how to write a pop tune; so well in fact that he’s not adverse to putting more than one of them in a single song. Sure, it sounds like it was recorded in the seventies, but it’s still a breath of fresh air, if anything that just makes you appreciate it even more: it’s like discovering you live next door to a long-lost childhood friend.
Even so, first track ‘Volunteer’ is one of the darker songs on the album; it’s a meaty foundation, yet its premature ending – after just over two minutes – seems initially a bit of a let down. But what it actually does is provide a wake up slap that makes you want to find out what happens next; it’s a good way to start the album.
The next track, ‘Last Look Around’ is where Figurines begins to settle. Not for the last time on the record Moore’s voice echoes the qualities of someone like Neil Finn – it’s the perfect foil for the twisting, plonking guitar, restrained piano and simple drums that he favours. But it’s another Neil – Mr Young – who provides probably the easiest comparison to Moore’s style, most notably on songs like ‘Last Look Around’ and ‘Verified,’ country-tinged bales of rocking-chair poetry that also owe more than a wink to George Harrison’s "Abbey Road"-era Beatles offerings.
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‘Accelerated Change’ is the album’s smile-along signature; it’s the poppiest song on display and also includes a nice line in elegant electric slide guitar. However, ‘Wrinkled and Flawed’ is quite appropriately titled – in comparison to the other tracks on the album at least – it’s as if Moore feels like he’s long enough resisted plugging in and allowing himself just a lick of good old distortion. Whilst it’s an effective change of pace that helps to keep you on your toes, it plods along without really saying too much. Strange then that ‘These Woods’ – an even more frenetic rocker – is an album highlight. It’s delightfully out of character and just in case you don’t get the message, ‘peace and tranquil places gone for good,’ sings Moore in as close as you’re going to get to a snarl, ‘didn’t know the devil owns these woods.’ He doesn’t really mean it though; the peace and tranquillity are back more or less straight away in the form of ‘Haven’t I the Face’ and the happy hippy ‘Two New Strings.’
‘Figurines’ itself is the final track, a reflective, understated closer that relies on little more than Moore’s vocal and some slightly melancholy piano. It’s suitably haunting in a Lennonesque way and finishes off the record in a likeably satisfactory fashion. Just in time for you to go back to the beginning and listen to it all again.
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