With albums from 60s legends bombing everywhere you look (Jagger, McCartney etc), it seems that the only way for aging stars to regain their credibility these days is to draft in a host of younger, trendier colleagues to write them some decent material. That's exactly what grand dame Marianne Faithfull has done here, and her A-list supporting cast of Beck, Blur, Pulp and Billy Corgan have helped her to make what's possibly her most interesting record since 1979's seminal Broken English. Highlights abound but the standout track is surely the self-mythologising Sliding Through Life On Charm, which features a typically wry lyric from Jarvis Cocker and is brilliantly delivered by Faithfull in tones of unforgettable world-weariness. With songs as good as this it's easy to overlook the fact that years of hard living have reduced her once-sweet voice to a gravelly rasp, and while Kissin' Time isn't free from dodgy moments, it's far, far more rewarding than the cynics might have expected.
