Growing Up in Public

Another musical career reset with Reed’s return to his more characteristic vocal performance, a blessing after the comedic delivery of ‘The Bells’, undermined by being surrounded by synthesisers. The album starts with the laughingly bad opening track where Reed appears to be firing his lyrics at a machine-gun rate to catch up with the music. Yet, for this reviewer, despite its weak overall collection of tracks, this was Reed’s best album since ‘Coney Island Baby’, some four albums previously. The standout tracks are Reed’s incorporation of Al Green’s ‘Take Me to the River’ in ‘Teach the Gifted Children’ and the excellent title track serving as a reminder of how capable this artist could be.