I’m a sucker for shoegaze, no matter how basic, it can be I never fail to be impressed by it, or like it arbitrarily. There’s an element of wizardry, and wonder to it that causes me to lose my normally rational, and discerning tastes and fall into a pile, sighing “ooo, nice sounds!”. On his first album Maps, aka James Chapman, proved he could make those nice sounds, while managing to at least moderately deviate from the rudimentary shoegaze template. It was druggy, ethereal and dream like; all words usually associated with the description of good shoe-gaze.On Turning the Mind, Chapman seems to have decided to take a slightly different direction. Taking more influence from the dance floor, effects laden guitars have been replaced by synthesisers, and there’s a brief cameo for clubland-esque shouting. During the opening song and title track, 'Turning the Mind', the future seems bright for James. Synthesisers swirl over a basic drum machine beat, while James’s voice lightly floats over the top. Single, and dancey statement 'I Dream Of Crystal' is a strong enough demonstration of Maps’s new direction. Lyrics about drugs and stuff, a big drum sound and a strong synthesiser line combine to make a perfectly acceptable song. Then for the next 7 or so songs Turning the Mind becomes boring and average. There’s the odd good idea, but Turning the Mind on the whole lacks the kind of inspiration that good music of it’s type requires. It does very little special or different to the norm, and when it tries to it fails. 'Love will Come' with its shouts of “Ko-ko-ko” is genuinely a bad song, and it’s disappointing to see stuff of it’s low, uninspiring quality contained within an occasionally good album.There’s a brief resurgence of good material towards the end of the album, 'Chameleon' and 'Die Happy, Die Smiling' preventing the album from being genuinely bad. Despite James Chapmans ideas occasionally coming off and succeeding, the soggy middle of Turning the Mind is testament to the fact that Maps’s new direction is not working as well as their first.

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