The 10th album from Tindersticks comes with a collaborative film project, in which every song is translated by a different video director. While this very contemporary concept has been utilised by the likes of Justin Bieber and Beyoncé in recent years, The Waiting Room is not an album which needs adornments: there is a simple, traditional pleasure in its earthy, untampered warmth – it is an album to be ingested in one sitting; the kind of immersive, intricately produced music designed to be listened to on some extravagantly priced, high-quality audio player. Injecting life into their usual louche romance, We Are Dreamers is dragged further into darkness with the addition of Jehnny Beth of Savages on barbed vocals, while Hey Lucinda – recorded with the late Lhasa De Sela – is an elegantly dishevelled duet, sung as if both are slumped across a bar. Its centrepiece – the smoky, soulful Help Yourself – is the triumphant declaration of a band shapeshifting with sophistication.
