Dhani Harrison – ‘INNERSTANDING’ album review: a frustrating genre-defying experiment
Everyone’s doom-scrolling. The collective frequency is low, and the news is bullshit. These are just a few takeaways from Dhani Harrison‘s latest album, INNERSTANDING, his first solo effort in six years. “Here we are in a new world,” muses Harrison, “and here is the new album that has come forth from it”. It’s electric, ambient, at times touched by flashes of alt-rock more closely resembling his sound with thenewno2, but its eclectic nature ultimately comes off as self-indulgent.
For all the new-age philosophy his lyrics invoke, you’re still unsure what it is he’s railing against, stitching buzzwords to one another in the hopes of hitting the target. ‘New Religion’ sums up the lacklustre aim of the writing the best: “We don’t eat your food, we’re sick of the water, stop this abuse, plastic / And poison, your head’s in the noose but you’re still chasing the pharma.”
Lyric writing isn’t inherently autobiographical, but the idea that George Harrison’s son is singing about being crushed by the system (there’s even a Matrix reference) is laughable. He’s obviously inherited a huge musical legacy, which I don’t doubt feels more like a hindrance than a leg-up when it comes to making his own mark – but there’s no escaping the privilege that it is being ignored.
While Harrison writes with an inherently optimistic message that will appeal to some: “Love is the tool, raise the vibration / ‘Cause when you live in the love it’s called a civilisation,” its twee lyrics let down the sonics, which on this track in particular, are some of the most invigorating on the album. Sounding almost reminiscent of Rival Sons in its rock-driven electronic flairs, it benefits hugely from Graham Coxon’s tight guitar.
Blur’s Coxon also appears on ‘Damn That Frequency‘, as a saxophone weaves around various electronic bleeps. One thing Harrison clearly excels at is creating soundscapes. The songs create their own imitate worlds, and while they veer too quickly from one to another to create a sense of real cohesion across the album, each track serves as a decent standalone reminder of Harrison’s true talents.
The talented creation of soundscapes is likely attached to Harrison scoring for film and TV previously, and you really sense that on the brooding numbers like ‘Ahoy There!’ The track, which features Liela Moss on vocals, is earthy in its atmospherics initially but slips into a psychedelic lilt complete with talk of being alive at high tide, perfectly highlighting the continuous reaching of the record: soundtracks trying to be songs.
Harrison clearly revels in collaboration, as evidenced by his work with Pearl Jam, Regina Spektor and Wu-Tang Clan, and on this album, the introduction of Australian singer Mereki, Coxon and Moss elevate the specific pockets of time they feature in.
Ultimately, what should translate as an album-long genre-defying experiment doesn’t quite stick the landing. Slipping from the overly subdued to the overenthusiastically mixed, it lacks commitment to both, and the pacing suffers as a result. It’s frustrating because the individuality is there, and Harrison is a clearly accomplished musician. But while the record concerns itself with condemning the system, its overlords and its various problematic frequencies – it gets too caught up in trying to exist outside of one.
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