Rustin Man
Drift Code
Release Date: Feb 1, 2019
Genre(s): Pop/Rock
Record label: Domino
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Album Review: Drift Code by Rustin Man
Very Good, Based on 4 Critics
Based on rating 8/10
Seventeen years separate Rustin Man's 2002 debut album Out of Season and its follow-up, but in the best possible way, Drift Code sounds like it took a lifetime to make. In some respects, it did. After Out of Season's release, Rustin Man's Paul Webb spent time raising his family and turning an old barn into his home and the studio where he painstakingly created the songs that became Drift Code.
Based on rating 7.6/10
Remember when Bono generously allowed The Edge to sing that one song on Rattle and Hum? A flicker of shock tends to register when you hear a member of a beloved band who is not the vocalist sing for the first time. It's like hearing an internet personality interviewed on a podcast-- "Wait, they sound like that?" During his seven years in Talk Talk, a period in which the group mutated from the routine synthpop of The Party's Over to the astonishing art-rock of Spirit of Eden, bassist Paul Webb never sang lead. Mark Hollis, owner of one of the great expressive voices of the 1980s, had that job covered.
Based on rating 7/10
Released more than 15 years after his debut as Rustin Man, Talk Talk bassist Paul Webb's followup, Drift Code, is atmospheric and moody, but too often forgettable. Especially in Webb's vocals, David Bowie's influence is unmistakable. The first — and, by far the best — track, "Vanishing Heart" sounds like it could have been plucked right off of Bowie's final album, Blackstar. Even with the hint of familiarity, though, Webb's voice is a little flatter and a little less compelling. Against a thick and layered instrumental landscape ….
Based on rating 6.5/10
The way that Paul Webb, aka Rustin Man and previously bassist for Talk Talk, intones the word "joy" in "Brings Me Joy" made me do a search to confirm that David Bowie was not in fact on this album. It's not just the weathered and wavering vocal delivery that owes a significant debt to the late saint of pop, but the muted jazz palate and solemn pastoralism mixed with a jaded sense of nostalgia all can be seen as extensions of the singular aesthetic cultivated by Bowie at the end of his life. And that wouldn't be a bad thing! It is hardly surprising when you consider that they were both once part of highly idealistic and romantic projects.
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