The third album, if we consider the "PPP" series as a separate section of his discography, is overall a very beautiful record, but its quality is sharply divided in half. In the first half, there's an Ant who gives a bit too much to a light pop, perhaps with a hopeful eye on the charts, resulting in mixed outcomes (a couple of songs are frankly not great, especially "I Will Love You," a cheesy slow-pop number that's really far from his usual style, but others are quite nice, like "Um & Aargh" and "Lucy Will"). However, in the second half of "Sides," the level clearly rises; Ant moves away from hesitant "pop-rock" attempts and alternates between returning to his typical acoustic territories and experimenting with harder, fuller sounds ("Nightmare" is very Hackett, for example), definitely more electric and far from the pop songs of the first half. In this latter half, every piece is excellent, just great songs for Ant, which elevate "Sides" to an absolutely valid album, with just a couple of throwaway tracks at the start. As always, Ant plays all the guitars and keyboards, but here, except for a few songs, he often hands the microphone over to various other singers. Ah, the cover with the foosball is beautiful.
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