Comments for theaudience, theaudience

Before she teamed up with Spiller for the massive hit "Groovejet", Sophie Ellis-Bextor fronted this six-piece who were variously touted as the new Beautiful South, the 90s Blondie and "not actually very good". In all honesty, for this album theaudience were still in the promising-but-not-quite-there-yet phase of their career, and had chief songwriter Billy Reeves not walked out on the group, they might have matured into something quite impressive. As it is, their one and only album entertains but doesn't exactly enthrall. The high points include the drak and brooding debut single "I Got The Wherewithal" and the stomping indiepop number "I Know Enough (I Don't Get Enough)". There are some neat arrangements - the strings on "Mr Doasyouwouldbedoneby" give a much-needed lift to what was originally a somewhat lifeless whinge on an obscure various artists EP, and Nyge Butler's keyboard lines turn several otherwise bog-standard indie tracks into something almost special - but how you'll feel about this album will depend to a large extent on how you feel about two key elements: Sophie's voice and Billy's lyrics. If you hated Sophie's voice on her solo disco singles, then I'm afraid you're not likely to get much out of her indie diva phase either. But what makes the album even harder to swallow is the lyrics. This is not an album to play when you're down - alcoholism is a common lyrical theme, as is aging in general. When allied to bright tunes - as in "I Know Enough" and "Keep In Touch", it works brilliantly. But at other times it can come across as mere whining. On the credit side, the two tracks not written by Reeves add some much-needed texture to the album. Nyge Butler's "Bells For David Keenan" is a slow chiming instrumental extracted from an earlier B-side and acts as a perfect precursor to Dean Mollet's "Shoebox Song", a formulaic but very catchy song that probably should have ended the album (the last track "How's That?" just being overlong, whiny and boring). My advice: don't bother with the standard single-album version of this, instead try to find the limited double-CD edition, the second CD of which outshines the parent album to quite some considerable degree.