Anita Lane - Sex O'Clock [Audio CD]

Sex O'Clock is the third solo project by Anita Lane. Anita has, unarguably, performed some sterling service in the cause of music, co-founding Nick Cave's Bad Seeds back in the early 1980s and co-writing such enduring relics as "Kiss Me Black". Unfortunately, the intermittent solo career she has pursued since has never quite lived up to this standard, or to her formidable connections: even the collaboration of Bad Seeds' sonic architect Mick Harvey will not be sufficient to divert "Sex O'Clock" from its swift and certain journey to the bargain bins. Harvey 's input alone ensures that these songs are not wholly unattractive: the windswept swing arrangements of "The Next Man That I See" and the cover of Gil Scott-Heron's "Home Is Where the Hatred Is" are especially pretty. The problem throughout is Lane's affectedly girlish vocal, which rapidly becomes unbearably cloying, and lyrics which despite their pretensions to sophisticated sensuality, would get laughed off a Def Leppard album ("Put some sugar in my tea/Take your spoon and stir it for me" indeed.). Sex O'Clock is an indifferent album deserving of indifference. --Andrew Mueller