The title track is also the opener, and begins with a very gently-plucked acoustic guitar. So far, so pleasant, if largely unremarkable. But then Robin begins to sing. There was nothing to prepare me for the helium-infused vocals, which are at once haunting and somewhat strange. Religious references abound as he paints a claustrophobic picture.
Indeed, religion and people wandering, lost (spiritually rather than literally), are recurring motifs through this sparse yet magnificently compelling album 'Alive That's All' sees James deliver the bleak refrain, 'I'm alive, that's all,' in a fragile quaver as he visits a range of scenes and scenarios populated by a host of desperate characters.
While much of the landscape is pretty barren and emotionally fraught and joyless, there are moments of light and wry humour, as on the more uptempo 'Rag Doll Girl,' where Robin recounts how 'We talked about God / and she told me about her demons / just for a minute I thought / I could hear them screaming.' It's the kind of dry wit you might expect to find in a Leonard Cohen song, and Cohen is perhaps the most obvious reference point by way of a comparison (that James listed Cohen's 'Songs of Leonard Cohen' as one of his three desert island discs in a recent interview comes as little surprise), although the vocals are perhaps more Devendra Banhart than Cohen in their quirky tremulousness.
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It's a remarkably well-crafted and intense set, all the more remarkable for having been recorded in a few short hours. This, however, may be a factor in its immediacy, and there's no question that for the musical simplicity of the songs, there's a lyrical complexity that James carries off in a way that seems entirely natural.
http://www.myspace.com/songsofrobinjames
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