Don Henley

Don Henley is back with first studio album in eleven years.

By anyone’s standards, it’s been a long wait, but the Eagles drummer and vocalist is back with a new solo record – Inside Job. Now signed to Warner Brothers for a three-album deal, this is his first release of any kind since Actual Miles : Henley’s Greatest Hits in 1995, and the first album proper since 1989’s hugely successful The End Of The Innocence.

Despite such a low-profile on the recording front over the past decade, Henley was far from idle. In addition to a handful of contributions to film soundtracks, he has continued to work on his non-profit organisation The Walden Woods Project which aims to protect the environmentally sensitive areas associated with the father of the American environmental movement, Henry Thoreau. Then there was the small matter of the Eagles reformation in the mid-nineties, and the extensive touring schedule that followed.

The musical sensibilities and keen lyrical intellect that were first evidenced on the title track of the Eagles‘ 1976 album Hotel California have become Henley’s trademark signature throughout his subsequent career. Contemporaries such as Randy Newman and Jackson Browne may have achieved similar critical acclaim, but it has been his enduring ability to coat his often ironic and satiric commentaries in the most luxuriant of melodies and layered arrangements which has seen him sell over 10 million solo albums since 1981 in America alone.

His most successful post-Eagles work has fused the emotional and the political almost seamlessly. The Boys Of Summer and The End Of The Innocence were as much paeans to a generation of lost dreams and ideals, as evocative love songs that echoed the sense of loss and discovery on a more emotional and personal level.

Blessed with a voice that can convey an acute poignancy and potency into even the most routine of lyrics, Henley has the advantage over his peers of being able to connect with a large audience while still remaining true to his convictions.

It will be of no surprise to those familiar with Henley’s previous work that the songs on Inside Job are frequently – by his own admission – very much “issue-oriented”. The growing anger and disillusionment Henley feels towards the increasingly corporate nature of his homeland has been a running theme throughout his solo work, and it’s something which continues to infuse the material on the new album.

However, a balance is provided in the form of several personally-oriented tracks. For Henley, the 90s were a time for family – he married and became a father three times over. For My Wedding, Taking You Home and Annabel are heartfelt and typically poignant celebrations of new-found domesticity and happiness.

Perhaps because of the cultural and political differences between America and Britain, Henley is best known here for songs which deal more in matters of the heart. While the likes of They’re Not Here, They’re Not Coming (on which he scythes through the whole “cult” of America’s obession with extra-terrestrial conspiracy theories) and Goodbye To A River (an elegy to dying eco-systems) should still have worldwide relevance, they will probably delight listeners more through their musical qualities than anything else.

They’re Not Here… in particular has an insistent (almost jaunty) rhythm, and an extremely radio-friendly melody.

Meanwhile, Taking You Home – originally written for inclusion in the film Double Jeopardy, but now the source of a legal dispute with Paramount Pictures – is a classic Henley ballad, and has been chosen for the first single in America.

The difference between Inside Job and previous Henley albums – aside from length (at 13 tracks and 70 minutes, it’s almost twice as long as both 1981’s I Can’t Stand Still and 1985’s Building The Perfect Beast) – is the remarkably high quality of the material. Whereas the others had at least one or two tracks that could charitably be called fillers, there are simply no weak links here whatsoever. The bitter Damn, It Rose and venomous title track (“You don’t have a fucking clue…”) hit new artistic heights, packing the kind of punch his talents have always promised.

In the past, Henley’s work has found a substantial audience in the US. Despite the lengthy hiatus and the ever-changing social and musical climates, a certain degree of that following should still remain.

In the UK, his last two studio offerings both reached the Top 20, and were certified silver. Though perhaps unlikely to emulate the huge success of his Eighties albums, Inside Job marks the very welcome and long-overdue return from one of the finest artists of his generation.