Life With You (Deluxe Edition)

Album Review

Sometimes a band finds its career virtually on hold. The Proclaimers had enjoyed a couple of major hit albums and especially two very memorable hit singles in the 1980s, "Letter from America" and "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)," but the hits dried up and the two identical twins Charlie and Craig Reid had carried on regardless, churning out their unique brand of guitar-based folk-rock with witty and clever lyrics. In fact, their previous three albums had all failed to reach the Top 60 in the album charts and only a belated compilation, The Best Of..., released in 2002, brought them briefly back to the Top 30. Then in 2007 their song "I'm Gonna Be" was chosen by the team behind the Comic Relief charity as the unofficial single (the official one being the Girls Aloud-Sugababes collaboration "Walk This Way"), and just like two years previously, it was the unofficial song that captured the public imagination and became the bigger hit, in fact reaching number one on the singles chart for three weeks in the spring. The Best Of... was quickly reissued and became their biggest album to date, and while the iron was hot, the twins released their seventh studio album, Life with You, which was produced by Steve Evans, who had previously worked with the Waterboys. The trademark Proclaimers sound was still there, including the finger-snapping opening title track, the staccato guitar that introduces "In Recognition," and the thoughtful lyrics, discussing religion on "New Religion" and "If There's a God." There was also misogynistic gangsta rap rhyming and swearing on "Here It Comes Again," and they didn't forget their roots, producing a faithful cover of the Wreckless Eric song "Whole Wide World." [W14's 2007 edition came packaged with a bonus CD, featuring live tracks and acoustic versions.]