What is it about SP that keeps us funding their macrobiotic diets? They used to dwell on hazy nights after a Smarties tube-sized portion of amphetamines and slutty university girls. Now, they’re ideal sons-in-laws, skilled in turning out softly spoken, slowly surging (in the way Westlife rise off their stools) ballads for post-David Gray thirtysomethings. For a change, they’ve tried doing ‘happy’ here as opposed to a soundtrack for a
middle-class divorce, but ‘Crack the Shutters’ is the slimiest serenade since ‘Love is All Around’, ‘Lifeboats’ unashamedly traces over Ian Brown, and last track ‘The Lightning Strikes’ is a space odyssey-defying 16 minutes long (surprisingly the best track by far). It’s barely worth a carrot stick.
