James playing a joint bill with The Charlatans at Liverpool’s Echo Arena (Gary Mather for Live4ever)
James performed Better Than That live on the BBC yesterday as Later…With Jools Holland continued.
Initially released as the title-track of the band’s recent EP, Better Than That will now also feature on the studio album Living In Extraordinary Times, which is due in August. Of the EP, Live4ever said:
“Pleasingly, despite the veteran status of their careers, this is not the work of a band lacking the wisdom to make cheap concessions. The titular opener barrels along, a clutch of overlaid ideas – bubbling synths, chopped guitars, rangy bass – all at an exuberant tempo that leaves little doubt as to whether Booth and co. are more closed of mind as they mature.”
“It’s a facet to their work designed to test the uninitiated, one where the superficiality of music as a swatch just to pass the time is dismissed as a bad idea. Closer Broken By The Hurt explores human fragility in the face of being once removed from a world turned inside out, the sort of dirge-come-confessional that’s been a hallmark of this darker other side of the band’s work for decades.”