The debut album from the Black Soul Strangers is a piece of tidy, proficient indie-rock. Super-strong on guitars,
this foursome from the Emerald Isle have produced a varied record that takes in all manner of 21st century styles.
The up-beat, rock-out tracks like opener 'Panic Sets Direction' are the exception to the otherwise quite low-fi offerings. 'Leave' is so laid-back we began to suspect that they'd
done all their recording lying on chaise longues.
A lot of this rock's rather gentle, actually. 'Monster' is positively delicate –
all twinkles and heartfelt melancholia, and it's musically a lot more interesting than the opening tracks.
Not that we enjoy pigeonholing, popping live human-beings into boxes or
obsessively categorising all the stuff in the Itchy office to within an inch of its life, but we're a bit annoyed with Black Soul Strangers. They won't let us, you see.
There's a bit of Coldplay, a splodge of the Killers, a smidge of Keane and a smattering of Travis.
Remember Travis? N'aw. Because of this heady mixture, listening to this album's a wee bit like listening to the radio. This is hardly an unpleasant experience, but we would say that it's made it a bit difficult for us to get attached to Animate.
We can't work out where to file it in our CD collection, and
that's pissing us right off.
