CD: B00008XRYT
RELEASED: 2003
LABEL: Spin Art

01. Love In Veins
02. Playgrounds And City Parks
03. Sliding
04. Baby Hold On
05. Arthur
06. Season
07. Another Train
08. High Wires
09. She Sings (All My Life)
10. Kansas
11. I Know I Want Know

Slideling is the best album Ian McCulloch's had a hand in since 1984's Ocean Rain. Unlike 1989's deeply personal Candleland and 1992's Mysterio, both recorded in post-split / pre-reformation acrimony, this time he's just moonlighting from Bunnyland. All the same, it's a busman's holiday. "Stake Your Claim" and the gorgeous "Sliding" are as heart-skippingly splendid as "Bring On The Dancing Horses", the chorus of "Arthur"as deliciously romantic as "Nothing Lasts Forever" and the dazzling "Kansas" finds Mac up to his shades in heaven, hell and hopes writ large in the stars. That said, here McCulloch is freer to scratch his Lou Reed itch, obvious from the opening chug of "Love In Veins" through to "High Wires" and most blatantly "Baby Hold On ", which unblinkingly robs "Walk On The Wild Side" of its sliding bass sound. He's also more sentimental on his own, such as on the Beatles-y "Playgrounds And City Parks" which is to sappy for your average Bunnymen LP perhaps, but more than welcome here. Slideling is an intense, uplifting rush of blood to the head. A slight return it may be, but it's more than welcome.