Pitchfork

Before recording this album, Charlotte Hatherley broke it off with Ash, the group she'd been playing with for nine years. The band was going to record its next album in New York, while she had plans to sequester herself in the studio to work on her own album in the UK, the follow-up to her rather Ash-y debut, 2004's Grey Will Fade. That album was far from a cookie cutter effort, though-- even if insanely catchy songs like "Summer" and "Bastardo" could probably find a happy home on an Ash album, their quirks and charms would definitely make them stand out amidst the usual plug-and-chug anthems Tim Wheeler's crew is best known for. According to all reports, the split was an amicable one, and given how fantastic The Deep Blue sounds, Hatherley's split with Ash was definitely for the better.

This album's not one to grab you by the collar and slap you silly-- that's what her first album did, kicking off things with "Kim Wilde", a multi-chord rumba that shares more than a few angles with XTC. On her second offering, she takes a different approach, introducing the album with "Cousteau", a wordless two-minute swoon, with Hatherley's dream-like cooing floating atop a sparking bed of guitars. From there, anything's game. There's plenty of the spunky guitar-pop she's best known for-- particularly the breathless "I Want You To Know" with its rolling, crashing drums and whipsmart guitar wrangling. But then there's "Again", a droopy ballad bolstered by an orchestral backing ripped from a Jon Barry Bond theme; there's the tropical breeze blowing through the round-robin harmonies of "Wounded Sky"; and there's also the shimmering, chiming "It Isn't Over", with Hatherley singing a sad and pretty tune-- "Pull on your cigarette/ And you pull hard on me"-- atop flutes and sleigh bells. Album closer "Siberia" is a decidedly rockier song, featuring Hatherley affecting a cool detached snarl. If you're looking for a place where these great tastes can get together, skip over to "Roll Over (Let It Go)"-- the first half features a spot-on impersonation of the Sundays' Harriet Wheeler (no relation to Ash's Tim), while the second brings in the bright yellow guitars (courtesy of Throwing Muses) and the rock bravado.

Yes, The Deep Blue is a trainspotter's nirvana, and Hatherley proudly wears her influences on her sleeve. You might notice (as I did) that the bassline in "Be Thankful" sounds an awful lot like the bassline from the Beatles' "Come Together", or you might think (as someone suggested to me) that the guitar work in the album's first single, "Behave", sounds like what Blur's Graham Coxon did before he heard Sonic Youth. It's a credit to Hatherley's songwriting that these little moments, vocally and musically, come off as nods and respectful homages instead of outright thefts. She's covering a wide swath of ground on this album, from the brutish stomp of "Love's Young Dream", to her collaboration with XTC's Andy Partridge, the dreamy "Dawn Treader". Still, the songs, um, come together quite nicely. It's also to Hatherley's credit that she plays a mean guitar, but doesn't come off as an obnoxious guitar hero-- check out her chops on "Very Young", and you'll see why Wheeler drafted her into his band when she was only 18. Charlotte Hatherley's come a long way in the nine years since then, and if The Deep Blue is any indication, she's only getting warmed up.