South

styles: space rock, indie rock
others: Elbow, Badly Drawn Boy, Doves

From Here On In
Mo Wax Records/Kinetic Records, 2001
rating: 7.1
reviewer: jean-pierre

I've seen a real revolution taking place this year. In New York City for instance, every Saturday afternoon you will find it hard to squeeze yourself into Other Music, Manhattan's ultimate CD store for every type of neu muzik. People are virtually fighting with each other not to sign some obscure artist, but for the chance to get their import-only releases before everyone else does.

Albums from artists such as The Avalanches, Mum, Zero 7 and Royksopp have sold-out constantly with barely any public appearances. Eight months pass before some clueless American A&R executive finds out about such artists. After years of terrible results in trying to break our music mainstream, they continue to release the music here in America.

With a domestic release date scheduled in January of 2002 on Kinetic Records, nearly a full year after the album was released in England, South's debut, From Here On In is one such album that seems to be headed for the 99 cent bins.

Mixing Stone Roses-esque Brit Pop with atmospherics and a little bit of the down-tempo beats, South are Mo Wax Records' first traditional "rock" band. The label that spawned the classic Endtroducing by DJ Shadow is trying to diversify and with the current success for such electro-rock acts as the Doves and Beta Band. Accordingly, South seem like a sure thing...(but you, of course, know there is nothing ever guaranteed).

From Here On In is certainly a nice listen right from the start. The album's first single, "Paint the Silence" is a fantastic mix of Ian Brown vocals with Cut Chemist beats, but the track never strives for much originality. Most of the album follows a similar path: pretty melodies that sound like a Stone Roses reunion album for the new millennium. Tracks such as "Here On In" and "Run On Time" are full-on Brit Pop anthems that build up and crash down with convincing feeling, but never develop any direction of their own.

The album is split up throughout with three excellent beat-driven instrumentals, each called "Broken Head." They contrast well with the traditional rock songs of the album, but continue to give the listener a sense that the band doesn't know which direction it wants to follow. With a sound that borrows so heavily from such obvious influences, it's very hard to appreciate this record as anything more than Stone Roses and DJ Shadow outtakes. Hopefully, the band can focus on its strengths in writing electro-tinged Brit Pop and make a more consistent album next time. At the very least, South still have some excellent influences.

1. Broken Head 1
2. Paint the Silence
3. Keep Close
4. I Know What You're Like
5. All in for Nothing (Reprise)
6. Here on In 
7. Run on Time
8. Broken Head II
9. Sight of Me
10. By the Time You Catch Your Heart
11. Live Between the Lines (Back Again)
12. Recovered Now
13. Southern Climbs
14. By the Time You Catch Your Heart (Reprise)
15. All in for Nothing
16. Broken Head III