To say that Cornershop don’t rush things would be an understatement. After their breakthrough 1997 album, When I Was Born for the Seventh Time (Luaka Bop), catapulted the single "Brimful of Asha" into the hip worldly corner of indie rock’s collective consciousness, the group (essentially protagonist Tjinder Singh) imploded, then reappeared five years later with the new Handcream for a Generation (V2). This release finds Singh adding more in the way of electric guitars to the Punjabi foundation of the previous disc. With cameos by the likes of Noel Gallagher, it’s an intriguing effort. But a week ago Wednesday at the Paradise, Singh and company delivered a mostly lifeless 10-song set before attempting to resuscitate the show with a guitar-fueled finale.
After a sampled introduction from Handcream for a Generation, the band rolled into the new "Staging the Plaguing of the Raised Platform" with three guitars blazing. Their attempt at reinventing the Manchester sound of Stone Roses and Charlatans UK with an Eastern twist came off as muddy and forced. For his part, Singh offered pedestrian strumming on an acoustic and a stage presence that seemed calculated to convey his indifference to performance. It’s not that you need to love your audience to be a compelling frontman — just look at Oasis brother Liam Gallagher. In Singh’s case, though, wandering around absently with a cocktail or off stage when his attendance was not required gave the impression he was bored. When the band abandoned electric guitars for the dual-sitar/three-percussionists treatment of "Sleep on the Left Side," his lack of interest spread into the audience.
Singh splatters samples liberally across the sonic landscape, and though they drummed up some interest, it seemed odd for such a large band to be relying on samples for all the background vocals — surely someone else in the group can sing. Unfortunately, by the time Cornershop were within grasp of a true union of their Eastern roots and their new-found love of guitar, on the T-Rexy "Lessons Learned from Rocky I to Rocky III," the energy of the room had all but evaporated.
