Howie B’s new album, Down with the Dawn, is his first solo record since 2010’s Good Morning Scalene but it sounds as if it could have been put out by him at any time since the release of his debut album, Music for Babies, in 1996. This is primarily because nothing meaningful has changed or developed in his sound since he first made his name as the producer of the musical accompaniment to many an after-club spliff session in the early nineties.
In a normal world that would be the full story and the full review of Down with the Dawn. However, in 1997, he was fortunate enough to be co-opted by U2 to co-produce, engineer and mix their album Pop, having already been involved with their Passengers project a couple of years previously. This seems to have resulted in an awful lot of people paying attention to his releases that would have absolutely no interest in his mid-nineties contemporaries, like Earthling and Funki Porcini.
Down with the Dawn weighs in at a not inconsiderable 69 minutes and while there is plenty of aimless dope-music, like “Frankie’s city”, “Run always” and “Can I close my eyes”, there are also a few very slight attempts to vary the formula. Unfortunately, this experimentation is so slight as to be almost imperceptible. While “Authentication” introduces an element of minimalism, it is so derivative of the likes of Philip Glass that it offers nothing more than a slight change in tone to this musical wallpaper. Similarly, “Master Inch Mile Haunch” may pick up the tempo slightly and threaten to evolve into a techno monster, but the kick drum never actually comes in and we are left with another undeveloped and unsatisfactory idea. “Sometimes Flower” does introduce vocals to the mix, courtesy of Gavin Friday of the Virgin Prunes, but it’s a case of too little too late, and I suspect that many casual listeners won’t even get as far as listening to this final track on the album.
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