There are a lot of self-indulgent people in the world. There are performance artists, Kevin Costner, and Pitchfork writers. The spectrum seems to peak, however, with anyone who has been in an even moderately successful British band. If you've ever wondered what caused Kevin Shields and Lee Mavers to retreat behind perfectionist anxiety rather than release new My Bloody Valentine or La's albums, your answer is Alone with Everybody. If Richard Ashcroft can descend from the heights of the Verve's Urban Hymns to this album with nary a buffer release, maybe Shields and Mavers are exercising well-founded restraint.

Devoted M2 viewer that I am, I've seen the video for Alone with Everybody's first single, "A Song for the Lovers," more than once. It's not a particularly high-concept video or anything, so hopefully my description will adequately capture the filmic vision here: Richard sits around his hotel room. He takes a shower, eats part of a sandwich, messes with the stereo, and sits around some more, being skinny and full-lipped. As the song ends-- and forgive me for ruining the dramatic ending here-- it finally seems like something's about to happen. Instead, Ashcroft goes to the bathroom, and... you get to hear him urinate.

The album is more of the same. "I Get My Beat," a 6+ minute attempt at soulfulness, is painfully bad. Ashcroft has recruited members of the same London gospel choir that appeared on Blur's "Tender" (there probably aren't too many options when you record in England, I suppose) and where the gambit was questionable in that song, the question is decisively answered here. It's a bad idea.

While not as outright traumatic as "I Get My Beat," the rest of the album follows the same general template of overly orchestrated mid-tempo ballads with inane lyrics. Lyrics about "mixed up boys/ and mixed up girls" in a "crazy world" make Alone with Everybody seem less like it has any relevance for contemporary youth, and more like it should be on the soundtrack to a 1987 pre-ironic Christian Slater vehicle. Ashcroft's overdependence on pedal steel guitar is another puzzling touch; nothing else here-- beyond the occasional, equally gratuitous harmonica-- shows any sort of country influence.

Aside from "A Song for the Lovers," which isn't bad in an overwrought kind of way, the most entertaining moments on Alone with Everyone come with Ashcroft's mid-period U2 impersonations. "Money to Burn" is a pretty good simulation of the short-lived roots-rock period Bono & The Gang immortalized on Rattle and Hum, whereas "New York" could be an Achtung Baby b-side. But remember the b-sides from Achtung Baby? Trust me. No one wants another "Lady with a Spinning Head."

So, Richard, if you're out there, please take this to heart: just because you can get a gospel choir or a guy to play pedal steel, it doesn't mean you should. Just because you've made cliches palatable in the past doesn't mean you can't aspire to more now. And Kevin and Lee, I'm finally willing to trust your judgment.

-Meg Zamula