One comeback album – 2017’s How the West Was Won – was surprising enough.
That a second album has come out two years later, making this Peter Perrett’s most productive period since 1978-80, when the Only Ones released their three records, is little short of miraculous. Maybe all the years lost to heroin and crack have been kind to Perrett in one sense; perhaps the missing decades meant he didn’t use up all his best musical ideas in one flush of talent. Humanworld isn’t just good by the standards of albums made by people who spent years on hard drugs, or by the standards of late career revivals: it’s simply a very good album indeed.
Humanworld manages to avoid both the possible traps: trying to hard to sound current, or trying too hard to recapture past glories. Instead it’s clean, and sharp and melodic guitar rock. You might, if you wished to damn with faint praise, call it tasteful. But, really, that just means that everything here sounds well-judged. There’s bouncy, spacey pop (Once Is Enough) and rumbling, grumbling rock’n’roll (Love Comes on Silent Feet), and most points in between. The delightful Walking in Berlin has the feeling of the third Velvet Underground album, but bathed in sunshine, while Love’s Inferno appears to owe a debt to Jethro Tull’s Living in the past. It’s also a celebration of brevity – 12 tracks, and none breaking four minutes – so no idea is wrung dry, and nothing overplayed. Long may the late flowering of Perrett continue.
