Drift Code

It is a very human experience, and if you can work past the occasional awkwardness of the vocal by spending more time with it then listening treasures await.

All in all, the album is a genial bird’s eye view of life presented in aphorism, perspectives from a man well aware of his aging and embracing it. There’s something joyful even in the moments of tension, as if their eventual dissipation is a given.

Drift Code may not be as bold an artistic statement as Spirit Of Eden, nor as interesting a sideline as .O.Rang, nor in all likelihood be as celebrated 17 years hence as Out Of Season. But Webb proves himself just as skilled as his former collaborator Gibbons in his ability to build worlds whose orbits brush against the heart while always staying at arm’s length. [Feb 2019, p.49]

Well worth the wait, Drift Code is the sound of an artist coming into his own on his own time.

What some might reckon to be Drift Code's one significant weakness--that Webb is not a conventionally beauteous singer--is once more a strength. [Mar 2019, p.86]

What Webb has created is so rich, so delightfully off-kilter, that an auxiliary listen is necessary the same way another sip of pickleback is necessary.

Drift Code doesn’t sound like Talk Talk (nor anything that could be described as “post-rock”), but what it shares with the band’s best work is both the sense of being adrift in time and a meticulous approach to production. These arrangements flicker with intricate melodic detail and nonconventional instrumentation.

If Drift Code can't quite match the rural psychodrama of its predecessor, it boasts its own quizzical magic. [Mar 2019, p.32]

Released more than 15 years after his debut as Rustin Man, Talk Talk bassist Paul Webb's followup, Drift Code, is atmospheric and moody, but too often forgettable.

Although there could be more diversity and depth at times, the vast majority of Drift Code is mesmeric in its idiosyncratic splendor.

Through a gently phased vocal and over a plodding piano Webb sings of dissolving into something bigger and how scary that is even as it welcomes.