Album Review: Guesswork by Lloyd Cole

You certainly can’t accuse Lloyd Cole of resting on his laurels. It would be easy for Cole to play the nostalgia game, churning out remakes of Rattlesnakes and Perfect Skin for all the fortysomethings who miss ’80s jangly indie guitar but who, for obvious reasons, don’t really want to encourage Morrissey any more than they have to. Instead, Cole has ploughed his own furrow since the band he made his name with, The Commotions split back in the late ’80s.

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A n intellectual titan compared with his frivolous new romantic contemporaries, Lloyd Cole first came to prominence in the mid-80s as frontman of the Commotions, their winning blend of jangling guitars and grownup literary allusions finding an audience eager for something with more depth than Howard Jones could offer. Since the Commotions disbanded in 1989, Cole's solo career has been pleasingly varied, oscillating between adventures in ambient electronica (most notably 2001's Plastic Wood and his 2013 collaboration with Hans-Joachim Roedelius) and more standard singer-songwriter fare. Guesswork finds him combining the two strands, with conventional song structures fleshed out by synths.

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