Album review: Paolo Nutini, Last Night in the Bittersweet
Paolo Nutini reveals some unexpected delights on Last Night in the Bittersweet
★★★★☆
With his matinee idol looks and Rod Stewart-esque voice it was easy to dismiss Paolo Nutini early in his career as just another crooning heartthrob. But his fourth album – and first in eight years – takes a blow-torch to that perception.
Last Night in the Bittersweet is a dazzling walk on the experimental side, encompassing genres as unlikely as krautrock, post-punk and shoe-gaze. At one point, Nutini even seems to be taking a trick or three from fellow Scottish musicians Arab Strap.
Short of Robbie Williams coming back with a collection of Sonic Youth covers it is hard to imagine a more radical reinvention by a mainstream artist.
What is especially impressive is that he does this without frightening the horses. If sometimes strange, the record is never unsettling. It’s experimental – but not confrontational towards his established fans. This is a journey he wants to bring them on, too. And by the end they may be glad they stayed the course.
“You’re so cool” goes a disembodied sample at the start of opener Afterneath, a tempestuous piece that suggests Neu! meets The Faces. Elsewhere, Acid Eyes pairs Nutini’s rasping voice with a rumbling bassline that sounds like the Pixies Debaser at half speed while Children of the Stars is a heartfelt jangler that hints that he’s been listening to The Waterboys Fisherman’s Blues (and a melody that comes over as a skewed take on Paul McCartney’s Band On The Run).
Nutini is at a point in his career where he could really churn out facsimiles of his first two LPs and please his huge following. It is to his credit that he is doing something else.
And if Last Night in the Bittersweet may disappoint some of those who thrilled to his blue-eyed soul phase, it’s hard not to admire an artist prepared to, in essence, rip it up and start again.
