Sometimes even I am driven to scratch my head in wonder at the many and myriad things that you can find on vinyl these days. It might even surprise your cat to find out that you can even squeeze an actor who sings into those 33rpm grooves. Now, an actor who sings is hardly that unusual but such extracurricular activities are usually limited to appearances on track three of a soundtrack album yet now we have Peter Capaldi – who was Doctor Who when it was still refrigerator cool to be Doctor Who – going the full artistic statement with “Sweet Illusions”.
“Sweet Illusions” is therefore not quite your ordinary album and with Dr Robert – yes, that Dr. Robert – adding in all kinds of musical drama in the best kitchen sink overproduction fashion, Peter Capaldi is never left without a bucket load of reverb and another bucket full of irony fuelled words to enable the kind of emoting that would allow Captain Capaldi to command the Starship Enterprise (original series, of course).
This album is cool in that ironic way that only people who are made of 99% organic ingredients will truly understand. This album will make you question why God gave you only two ears. This album will make you celebrate the fact that, even in these days of fascist musical conformity enforced by computer, this is an album that is so individual that no artificial intelligence could ever create it. I would even call it a magical masterpiece as simply playing these eleven songs would bring the cravat right back to the forefront of fashion.
In fact, should I ever become a serial killer (allegedly), I would play this to my (alleged) victims before I dispatched them to their final destination so they would know what they would soon be missing. Why would anyone make an album like this? I do not know but I am so very glad that Peter Capaldi did.
Best songs: The awesome triviality that is “Bin Night” or the manically oblique “Through The Cracks”.
Verdict: A work of genius.