The Charlatans

iTunes Review

By 1995, England's baggy-trousered Madchester scene was pretty much dead. Oasis and the Verve had taken the torch from bands like the Stone Roses and Happy Mondays, but it was obvious that the Charlatans had chosen to adapt with the times. Their self-titled fourth studio outing still leaned heavy on the Hammond B-3 organ, but it would be their last album with keyboardist Rob Collins, who died in a car accident almost a year after the record's release. Collins truly knew how to play the Hammond, neither as keyboard nor piano but how it was meant to be played: as an instrument unto itself. He paddled the keys with groove-heavy rhythms in the mold of Jimmy Smith and grinded the tones through a rotating Leslie speaker, most notably on songs like the Stonesey "Just Lookin'" and the funked up "Bullet Comes." Singer Tim Burgess tries his hand at falsettos with success on the soulful "Nine Acre Court" and channels some "Sympathy for the Devil" on the beginning of the contagiously catchy "Just When You're Thinkin' Things Over." The Charlatans were getting closer to finding their own sound on this album, which explains why it has aged better than its predecessors.