With a legendary career both with
the Bee Gees and as a songwriter and producer outside the group, it seems somehow impossible that 2016's
In the Now is only
Barry Gibb's second true solo album. Working with his sons Steve and Ashley, recording in the studios where the Gibb brothers made their classic mid-'70s hits, still haunted by the deaths of his three brothers, the album is a family affair and the songs feel like they are true statements of where
Barry Gibb stands as he reaches the back stretch of his life. The lyrics speak of journeys and memories, death and rebirth, sadness and the comfort of lasting love, all sung in a voice battered by the years. Traces of the elastic falsetto
Gibb made famous flicker here and there, but the bulk of the vocals are delivered with a husky vibrato that makes everything he sings sound ripped from somewhere adjacent to his soul. If only the music made the same kind of impact. The crew of musicians backing
Gibb seems determined to make everything sound as smooth and featureless as possible, the production (for which
Gibb and John Merchant share the blame) is airless, and the arrangements do the songs no favors at all. To that end, the team of Gibbs doing the writing don't really settle on any one kind of style and the wide range means that the album ends up sounding unfocused. Hard-ish rockers like "Blowin' a Fuse" back up against laid-back country-rock tunes ("Home Truth Song"), one song mixes in some
Bee Gees-style psych pop in an uneasy manner ("Amy in Colour), gentle disco-pop groovers ("In the Now") balance uneasily with choogling barroom rock like "Diamonds," and it really doesn't fit together cohesively. If there is one thread that runs through the album, it's the kind of adult contemporary balladry that
Gibb nailed in the '80s with songs like "Islands in the Stream." The problem is that those songs had a gentle pop soul that made them stick; the songs here aim for romantic, but land closer to somnambulant. Songs like "Star Crossed Lovers" and "Shadows" sound embarrassingly old-fashioned and make
Gibb sound ancient. A more sympathetic production style and some focus would have made all the difference on
In the Now. It's not unprecedented for musicians of
Gibb's caliber to refashion themselves as wise balladeers (
Neil Diamond,
Johnny Cash) or even as club icons (
Cher); his desire to try a bunch of stuff and not nail any of it leads to an album that fails to make a positive impression. Had he done a disco album that balanced his lived-in vocals with funky grooves or maybe dug deep into the tattered and worn humanity behind his words and presented something unvarnished, maybe it would have worked as a kind of career-topping statement instead of the disappointment that it is. [
In the Now was also released on LP.] ~ Tim Sendra