Lacks bite
Barry Adamson has tackled many different styles during his thirty odd year career from cinematic work with David Lynch(and many others), playing with Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds and Magazine to releasing a plethora of solo albums. I first became aware of him on the Lost Highway Soundtrack and sought out more, eventually settling on the dark and sultry album Oedipus Schmoedipus with its jazzy, industrial, lounge style - it's an uber cool record.
This new album I will Set You Free hold snippets of this sound; the Nick Cave influence can be heard on certain tracks and tunes like Black Holes In My Brain which is a real corker, nods towards jazzy lounge with a cinematic bent. Unfortunately though the tone across the record is not consistent and the next track, Turnaround, seems to be missing the same spark of creativity; just a simple pop song which loses the retro 60s feel, which is an undertone for much of the album, and instead, just sounds dated.
This is repeated often on the record with some interesting atmospherics being ruined by a flat poppy chorus (see The Power Of Suggestion) and sometimes it verges on cheese which is a real shame as Barry at his best on tracks like the scuzzy, garage-esque Destination still has a certain charm. Overall an inconsistent album, some moments of interest but all in all you'd still be better off seeking out some of his older work.