Lloyd Cole: The Negatives : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

With five and a half years passed, a major-label relationship ended and mass success always a promise and hit single away, Lloyd Cole's hunkered down and recorded an album of literate guitar pop that keeps close watch on broken hearts and not angry, bitter directives towards management. Sure, he self-references his career for "Past Imperfect" and fesses up on "Tried to Rock" that he once fell for his own hype and believed in the supernatural powers of the rock-star machinery. But now he's also content to blend in with his first actual band since the Commotions -- the Negatives (featuring Jill "I Kissed a Girl" Sobule on guitar) -- and serve up gorgeous love songs anchored by swirling arpeggiated guitars. Ambiguity and ambivalence, however, remain his strong suit, as anyone as lovestruck as Cole would write a tune like "No More Love Songs" clearly points out. (ROB O'CONNOR -- April 3, 2001)