ALBUM REVIEWS: STEREOPHONICS and PHANTOM LIMB
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Stereophonics
Keep Calm And Carry On
Mercury Records
Rating: 2/5
The seventh LP from the Welsh water-treaders features lead single Innocent, a sunny, optimistic toe-tapper that, much like a bowl of Cornflakes, is nice enough and won't offend anyone. She's Alright has Kelly Jones on confrontational form, presumably protecting his lady from bullies by gruffly shouting at them - but it falsely signals a return from the band's career-long slide into drawling, sprawling and dead-eyed rock-lite towards a meatier centre. Hackneyed tunes like I Got Your Number reveal said meat to be closer to greying mince than prime, hot-blooded rump. Synth flirts on Beerbottle's lazy four-minute meander feel as calculated now as it did for them in 2005. Yawn.
Phantom Limb
Phantom Limb
Naim Edge
Rating: 4/5
Far from being the rag-tag bunch of sweaty, multi-pierced and leather clad heavy metallers their name suggests, the only torches this Bristol sextet bear are for the legends of country-blues, soul and gospel. Lead singer Yolanda Quartey's powerful, smoked honey voice is an instant attention-grabber, but is expertly harnessed as one of their myriad instruments to immersive effect. Double bass, Hammond organ, acoustic and slide guitar warmly couch her vocals on the intimate, painful and rousing My Love Has Gone, a case in point and a reminder for X Factor hopefuls of what real quality sounds like. Traditional genres get a well-executed, heartfelt and genuinely moving update.
- STEPHEN MOORE
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