Playlouder - Music is the Network

Sometimes you just want to get an electric cable and put several hundreds volts through just in the hope that you might actually shock some life in to them. I would say that South’s album You Are Here didn’t have any pop, but that would imply that it snapped and crackled, but nothing that interesting really happens. It is gently pleasant all the way through, until the final few tracks, when it starts to irritate.

It just never seems to kick in, it‘s smooth, too smooth, sort of low-fi, but too well produced. There’s a couple of snappier riffs and some nice trumpets but no matter how promising the intro, it quickly becomes bogged down and for this the vocals have to be blamed. Singer Joel Cadbery voice remains a flat whisper without much enthusiasm. It’s not too much to ask for some fire or soul in a vocal performance, yet Cadbery seems to just go through the motions, barely registering on any radar.

Infuriatingly the most interesting moment comes finally with a secret bonus track, which sounds like a demo, which is at least a little rough around the edges. There are bits that seem to warrant a rougher more vigorous treatment, a bit of fire, but at its most exciting it sounds like a bored and extremely lethargic Gang of Four, and no one wants that.

Yet somehow I don’t hate it. I can’t help but feel that someone is too blame for not bringing full colour to this dull effort, that hidden beneath there was a better effort that could’ve be drawn out. Yet the production and the vocals remain flat, and the album sadly lacks passion, charm or excitement.