Patrick Wolf's career has been evolving in a way that is probably not far from what David Bowie did in the 1970's. Someone pushing boundaries, with an ambiguous sexuality and a hunger to try out new things, sometimes edging to the limit of conventional taste, while creating masterpiece after masterpiece. There's some similarity in here, right? "The Bachelor", his fourth album, keeps on this path, in what is probably his most ambitious work yet, a conceptual piece that includes narrations by Tilda Swinton and is an intimate look into a contradicting and fascinating artist. Serving as a synthesis to everything he has done before (electronics, pop, folk, you name it, it's here), it also shows a songwriter and musician maturing and defining his own place and genre. Somewhere in the process, with so many antagonic elements cautiously put together, there is a bit of spontaneity and visceral energy that is lost, but that's a small price to pay for the complexity that someone like him can insert into a song. Judging by what "The Bachelor" shows, it's a risk he has taken that is definitely worth it. (8/10)
Patrick Wolf - Hard Times (video)
www.myspace.com/officialpatrickwolf
patrickwolf.com
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