For the past five years or so, this writer's been boring the pants off virtually everyone within earshot where the virtues of CHRIS MILLS' songwriting abilities are concerned, and as his fourth 'proper' studio album rolls around, it's hard to believe this unassuming, but super-talented character is still slogging around in semi-obscurity and not being feted with across-the-board roots-rock notices of the Ryan Adams variety.
Because, like Adams and Jeff Tweedy, Mills has been operating in a broadly country-rock idiom (there's still room for strategic curls of pedal steel in places here), but has proved himself adept at marrying tough and tender songwriting to a variety of styles from gentle acoustic folk through to edgy, determined power pop a la Costello and even ragged, further-out-there avant-rock blasts. Crucially, he's made all of these approaches entirely his own, and with "The Wall To Wall Sessions" he's made both his most ambitious album to date and also his very best.
Although Mills has relocated to New York City since he made 2002's under-rated "The Silver Line", he's returned briefly to his Chicago homeland to record "The Wall To Wall Sessions." However, although the album still has rock in its' heart, the sensurround is predominantly orchestral this time round, with Mills corralling the services of a 24-piece orchestra to lay down their parts (in a creative blitz over barely more than 48 hours) and ensuring the whole shebang was recorded - just like the '60s - live and direct to the desk with a minimum of overdubs.
If this sounds a little like Chris Mills exercising his cut-price Phil Spector tendencies, then, well perhaps it is. In fact, if you wanted a signpost to this new album from his past, then I'd suggest the most obvious one would be the magnificent, faux-50s drama of "Signal/ Noise" that closed his brilliant second album "Kiss It Goodbye". Importantly, though, the grand-scale arrangements involving strings, horns and woodwind are always entirely crucial to the plot of Mills' new songs and never once blunt the emotional impact of what are arguably his 10 most fantastic tracks to date.
It begins with the faux(?)-autobiographical "Chris Mills Is Living The Dream" and Mills a capella, singing "Oh I dreamed I was Richard Pryor, running on fire down the Sunset Strip." As intros go, this takes some beating, but as it gradually morphs into a dynamite piano and string-caressed ballad - as lovelorn and delicious as anything Mills has produced - then you soon realise this is going to be some record.
And so it proves. "Escape From NY" is next, one of the few where Chris plugs in his guitar. It's hugely exciting, too: a rumbling, widesecreen rocker with punchy, Costello-style wordplay, there-by-the-grace drama and a surprise slow down where the pedal steel seeps out and drifts across the sky. The horns finally nail it down to perfection.
"Dancing On The Head Of A Pin" is next, and it's a dignified, woodwind-led beauty, with one of Mills' most grainy and lovely vocals yet. It's an imploring, inherently pretty affair full of killer lines ("Love will find a way to make a king into his slave") and shows just how far ahead of the majority of the competition Mills is these days.
This impression is cemented by both "A Farewell To Arms" and "Mothra (Will You Please Be Quiet)". "A Farewell..." features more sublime orchestral input complementing a piano ballad with Beatloid tendencies, while "Mothra..." is one ambitious little devil. Opening with a jaunty, 20s-style ragtime feel, it's superficially playful, but after the first minute or so, it slows down to become an aching ballad of some quality, moulded by Mills' special touch. It's very much the sound of a leap into the unknown, but one taken with confidence and verve which ends up sounding just like Chris Mills.
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"In The Time Of Cholera", meanwhile, is one of those longing-fuelled, schmaltz-free torch songs (a la "Everything's Gonna Be Cool") that Mills is getting devastatingly good at, while "The World Some Sad Hour" is the record's second rocker. The orchestra beef up the riffs, the drums are monumental and the whole thing's a glorious, romantic rush of sound with distinct echoes of the late 1950s. You're barely calming down when he hits you with "Everything About The Heart", which is an ultra-plaintive acoustic set-piece - a little like a distant cousin to "The Silver Line"s "I Could Not Stand To See You" - with chamber pop strings gently caressing.
Which brings us to the home strait, and arguably the two finest songs here. "You Are My Favourite Song" is a witty, wonderfully knowing mid-paced country-pop canter fed by trombone, shards of pedal steel and Neil Young-style upright piano which slides into one of Mills' most irresistible choruses. It's terrific, but still no match for "Constellations": quite possibly the best song he's yet committed to tape.
Opening with the tear-jerkingly defiant lines "Little one, do not cry/ Though the times may be tragic, there is still wonder, there is still magic", it's quintessential Mills: aided and abetted by vibes, subtle orchestration and rising femal backing vocals, it's poised and utterly tremendous and as this - all-too brief - record of 31 short, yet essential minutes winds down you're in no doubt you're listening to one of the best songwriters out there operating in any given genre.
Of course, in a perfect world, the obscenely generous quality of Chris Mills' songs and their performance would automatically elevate him to a much higher pantheon, but sadly that ain't the cold, hard 21st Century reality, and it's every bit as possible your reviewer may still be one of the lone voices in the wilderness espousing his brilliance in another five years time.
But if that's the case, he'll still be doing it with the same gusto and conviction, safe in the knowledge you'll catch up one of these days.
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