Britpop and I go way back. I remember the summer our love first bloomed, when a gaggle of UK melody slingers and guitar tinkerers saved me from the drooping cul de sac of my classic rock phase. I'd been ensconced in false notions of the categorical inferiority of new music for years, but just before I sank low enough to actually purchase a Black Oak Arkansas album, I unexpectedly became exposed to Pulp, Radiohead, and The Stone Roses, and I emerged changed, open to just about anything new. For a few years, the filters were off-- anything that had even the faintest ring of Britpop to it was devoured regardless of its quality, until Britpop became a cul de sac itself. Looking back, I'm not sure how a band like Menswe@r didn't send the hazard lights blinking, but needless to say, distance provides objectivity, and I'm to the point where an album's mere Britishness is hardly enough for it to win me over.
I mention all this because With the Tides, the sophomore offering from UK trio South, is exactly the kind of album I would have blindly adored just a few years ago. Not that I've necessarily wizened with age, but I'm certainly more cynical, and it's about time we got around to admitting that it's every music fan's right to be jaded. South make what you could probably get away with labeling "post-Britpop." The elements are pretty much the same-- strong, tenor-sung melodies, ringing guitars, and concise songwriting-- but they're also tossed with a salad of keyboard-based textures and electronic flourishes befitting a post-IDM world. Mo'Wax labelhead James Lavelle produced this band's 2001 debut, From Here on In, but that album was unfortunately a bit of a blur, with only a song or two that could be counted as highlights.
This time out, the band hooks up with Dave Eringa, generally a Rock Guy responsible for the boardwork for such notables as Manic Street Preachers, Idlewild, and Ash (not to mention Kylie Minogue), and it shows immediately. The textural elements that defined their debut, while still omnipresent, are toned back a bit to let Jamie McDonald's sturdy vocals have the spotlight, and the drums are punchy as hell. But is it enough? Sort of. When South bring their best songs to the table, it bangs, but there are still a few lines of featureless grout in between the colorful tiles.
They hit biggest out of the gate, as opener "Motiveless Crime" is a rush of are-they-strings-or-keyboards atmospherics, driving rhythm and well-baited hooks. The heart of the album's sequencing is productive, too, with its three most diverse tracks coming in quick succession. "Fragile Day" opens as a bobbing hymn, soaked in drifting ambience, slowly building on a skeletal beat, finally climaxing with a harmony-soaked chorus and a pummeling epilogue that nicely sets up "Nine Lives", a quiet song from a darkened room supported almost solely by cello and harp (and lots of reverb). "Same Old Story" rebounds with an insistent bassline, spry drumming and the same ascendant guitars that put the glow in Doves' Lost Souls.
At its height, Britpop produced an enormous crop of great sprinters, but only a couple of true long-distance runners, and South certainly fall into the former camp, able to drop a great song seemingly at will, but struggling to maintain variety and consistency. About the boldest thing that South could do at this point to help diversify their albums would be to step out from behind the blanket of texture they've wrapped themselves in, and simply let their craft work for itself. While that seems unlikely, what South has now is slowly coming into sharper focus, and though it's no masterpiece, With the Tides is certainly a good record. At the very least it should ease your Britpop jones better than Menswe@r.
