Review:

on 2012-02-19 CharlesMartel Said:

I had truly high hopes for this album. After all, "Valerie" was one of the better single releases of the 2006 and it compelled me to go back and check out the Zutons' debut album. I was of the view that if the album matched the single, this would be a classic. Unfortunately, the album does not live up to the promise that "Valerie" offered, and it is something of a mystery to determine why. The album is not bad; the instrumentation is fine (the saxophone of Abi Harding excepted on several, lamentable occasions); and the arrangements and production are faultless. It is just that the album lacks any oomph.

Every time I play this I am left wanting something more. Now normally I would say that was the sign that an album is great, but in this case I want something more because I feel that it does not deliver enough in the first place. Each track falls short of what it potentially could have been if only someone had stopped, taken some time to think, and put some get-up-and-go into the music. I can see where the band wanted to go with this, a kind of funk-rock influenced dance music with a bit of refinement. It is just that they do not deliver. It has, for all the production and arrnagements, a distinctly amateur feel about it.

It starts off well enough with "Zuton Fever" which has a riff to die for. Then it starts to tail off - rapidly. The lyrics become lazy, only occasionally reaching something which could be called classy. And yet, when the band want to, they demonstrate what they can achieve with a track like "Confusion" which is easily the best track on the album. But this is a rare highlight in an otherwise depressing litany of nearly made it songs. At times the album sounds like a collection of Greatest Hits from a band who never made it into the top 40.

And yet, despite, this, it can be peculiarly enjoyable in a weird sort of way. There are times when the album just seems to fit the mood. Not many, I grant you, but those times do exist. When you do not feel like being too intelligent, or just want something on in the background to tap your foot to, then this album truly comes into its own. It fits because you don't have time to think and you don't have time to feel that the awful saxophone sound is grating on you. Yes, the biggest flaw is the saxophone. Abi Harding does not seem to have mastered her instrument and the potentially rich tones of the sax are lost in what all too often sounds like one of this cheap little plastic saxophone hooters that children find so gratifying, principally because adults find them so irritating.

In the end though, the album disappoints. In an attempt to be something different, the Zutons have ended up sounding less than they ought to have been able to achieve. Since their second album, the band have largely disappeared off the map, being best known for writing a song which the late Amy Winehouse did to death. That the original is far better is a credit to the Zutons. That their debut never matches that standard is to their detriment.
Rating: 6/10