The Bruce Springsteen of the Welsh valleys!
Stereophonics: Keep the Village Alive (Stylus)
Verdict: Vivid story-songs
WITH record labels awakening from their August slumber as the nights draw in, an autumn season packed with major albums is being kick-started by these stalwarts of British rock.
Stereophonics have become one of our most reliable guitar bands since emerging from the Welsh village of Cwmaman to be crowned best newcomers at the Brits back in 1998, and this well-crafted ninth album plays to their traditional strengths.
Singer Kelly Jones’s calling card is the bittersweet tale of small-town romance, and Keep The Village Alive finds him in his element.
If 2013’s concept album Graffiti On The Train was hamstrung by having to adhere to an underlying story of two backpacking teenagers, this is more freewheeling. Kelly’s eye for detail was honed when he worked on a local market stall, and this album is full of sharp character sketches, from individuals searching for escape through a ‘six-pack of beer’ to the frustrated banker’s wife embarking on an illicit affair on Mr And Mrs Smith. My Hero is the tale of a friend in the Armed Forces, while C’est La Vie attempts to do for the Welsh valleys what Bruce Springsteen once did for his native New Jersey: ‘ You’re looking good but the fact is you’re lazy / But people love you ‘cause you’re funny and crazy.’
Like The Boss, and The Killers’ Brandon Flowers, Jones leaves listeners to draw their own conclusions. His vignettes can be gritty — it always seems to be raining in his songs — but they are never scornful.
‘It’s an optimistic record,’ he says, and it is hard to argue.
HIS rasping voice augmented by his bandmates, Stereophonics tackle timehonoured styles with taut, seasoned verve.
White Lies is a bracing rocker built on U2-inspired guitars, Sing Little Sister a dirty blues number that echoes the Stones’ Sympathy For The Devil.
Without offering anything remotely ground- breaking, they also spring moments of unexpected sophistication, with Sunny spiced up with Eleanor Rigby strings and James Bond arranger David Arnold adding moody orchestration on Fight Or Flight.