Live It Like You Love It: the Best of the Charlatans Live

The Charlatans' best moments on record are always those in which inventiveness in the studio has redeemed their otherwise pedestrian musical imaginations, to say nothing of rendering presentable Tim Burgess's affecting but limited voice--think of the Isaac Hayes guitars on "The Only One I Know", or the luxuriant washes of multi-tracked guitar that made the whole of Tellin' Stories such a joy. In concert, the Charlatans have sometimes been able to make up for the exposure of their limitations by engendering a sense of giddy communal uplift, but it doesn't translate at all to record--the band sound like they're playing two rooms along down the hall, and when Burgess's singing coincides with the melody, it's only due to the law of averages. --Andrew Mueller