I Think We're Gonna Need A Bigger Boat

Norman Cook’s concern for the state of his trade, while veiled in ironic drag, is hard to ignore. It’s what makes The BPA tick, but also what keeps the BPA’s debut album more in the theory-not-practice side of respectability.

The setting of its creation and the open mindedness of its creators allow for an unfettered approach to music-making that stops things from getting stale--or clashing with each other for that matter. [Winter 20009, p.70]

Even though songs 'He's Frank' and 'Toe Jam' are tremendous achievements, I Think falters too often in mediocrity, and fails to show promise of becoming as classic as it was meant to be. [Winter 209, p.103]

The mellow rethink helps Cook get over his sweaty ’90s heyday, and his buddies sound equally liberated.

Iggy Pop's deadpan delivery on "He's Frank" sets the tone for an album that sometimes gets a little goofy, while the danceable "Toe Jam" pairs David Byrne with Dizzee Rascal (finally!). The lesser-known guests offer more misses than hits.

What’s good here is excellent fun, and what isn’t is mostly forgettable.

The beats are dandy, tweaked-up period pieces from Sixties ska to Eighties R&B. But song albums, as opposed to DJ mixes, need good songs.

Even if this Boat doesn't always stay afloat, Cook's eager-to-please melodic sensibilities can still get jaws a-smilin'. [Mar 2009, p.116]

A vessel that can't help but feel a little under-populated by comparison to N.A.S.A.'s "The Spirit of Apollo."

Some tracks feel throwaway, but goodtime vibes prevail. [Apr 2009, p.80]

If the whole is too eclectic to eclipse the sum of its parts, it's an exhilarating diversion. [Apr 2009, p.100]

Every synth setting and drum sound and vocal technique on I Think We're Gonna Need a Bigger Boat is a pastiche of a sort of thing you've heard before.

Concocting a ruse about how the album came about after discovering a cardboard box of dusty and undated reel-to-reel tapes of the BPA’s lost studio sessions from the 70s seems foolish and unnecessary if the recordings were good enough to stand on their own merit. Sadly, other than Iggy Pop’s crack at the Monochrome Set tune He’s Frank, they’re not.

The color palette Fatboy has assembled for this project—Justin Robertson, Martha Wainwright, Dizzee Rascal, Iggy Pop, and David Byrne, to name but a few--doesn’t trump the fact that musically, the BPA is mired in beats that smack of early 2000, if not the late ‘90s.

The guest list is impressive--there's everyone from Ashley Beedle to Martha Wainwright--but Cook's shtick of welded-together loops and samples remains the same, and it sounds wearied.