Dom Robinson reviews

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Released: September 2008 Rating: 5/10 It's been a long time since I heard any output from SWing Out Sister as the beautifully clear angelic voice of Corrine Drewery only hit the Top 10 for their first two chart hits in October 1986 with Breakout (No.4) and January 1987 for the follow-up, Surrender (No.7). That said, the hits that followed were still great classics to these ears, with Twilight World (No.32, April 1987), You On My Mind (No.28, April 1989) and a brief return with a cover of Barbara Acklin's 1968 track Am I The Same Girl (No.21, April 1992). They tried one more comeback in August 1994 with another 1968 song, the Delfonics' La La (Means I Love You) which stalled at No.37 and since then the band and the charts have been strange bedfellows. It was the last time I heard them before now, even though they've kept going with a new album every few years, so they've been consistent. And, so, to the present day with their ninth and latest album, Beautiful Mess, comprising of 10 main tracks and 2 remixes. Starting at the top, Something Every Day is a is, in essence, a love song about having found the right person to share your life with. It means the album starts off classy with all the fine elegance of their first output over 20 years ago Such a simple concept is looked at from all the angles a relationship can be seen - the past, present and the future. No question, this is a stylish track that should be played on every radio station in the land which likes a touch of cool, laid back music. Time Tracks You Down has a similar style and tempo, but the topic here is how time can drag when you've got time to kill, generally because you're in Singlesville, such as with the lyrics "I thought I found sweet love one day, until I threw it all away, doin' things I'm not supposed to do", and how we spend too much time navel-gazing about what's gone wrong in the past without looking forward to the future. Gorgeous vocals from Corrine as she uses her voice to great effect as if it's another instrument in the mix. The third track, Butterfly, continues much in the same vein - in both style and content, such as with the lyrics "Life may have led you astray, forever takes it's time when you're still trying, to find your way. You feel love passing you by; just up and look around you'll be surprised at what you find." We go up-tempo a bit for My State of Mind, with no particular direction in lyrics, as if we're going through Corrine's mind where she could be thinking anything, before it evolves into quite a funky track and then fades out. The next track, I'd Be Happy, has a definite '60s feel to the sound production, but, again, it's a fairly simple love song and by this point in the album we're looking for a little more progression which we're not getting, and at the halfway point, Butterfly Lullaby is simply an instrumental of track 3, even if it is a nice light and airy one and has a different tempo. There's a change of direction for the start of the second half with Secret Love (You're Invisible) as Corrine and co. get their groove back and go with the cleverness they struck with Something Every Day, this time looking at those dreams where you fall in love with someone, but in reality it's an impossible situation because they're not real, they're 'invisible', as the song states "You've found a place we've never been, now we're together. Invisible, impossible, I see our love will last forever." It's a situation we've all found ourselves in, several times, but this song cleverly avoids mentioning the reaction you get when you wake up - as that wouldn't be broadcastable, but it really encapsulates the feeling of while you're in that moment. In addition, it looks like this track got a single release in Japan in August of last year but I don't know how successful it was. Next up, All I Say, All I Do is a fairly middling track, stuck near in the middle. It doesn't break any new ground, but it's a pleasant 4½ minutes, again more as a piece of background music. Heading towards the last of the main tracks, Out There doesn't have a lot to say in the game of love - mainly about what "we'll find out there" without going into any speculative detail, but it has a lot of panache in the production stakes so it makes for a great track. Title track, Beautiful Mess, comes next, but while it has a decent beat to it, the insight into the content is nowhere to be found as it just puts an interesting backing track to what is basically a pondering of love - "Where we're heading is anybody's guess. All that's left is one big beautiful mess.". Why is that all that's left? It's not at all clear. Finally, we have Little Wizard remixes of Butterfly and Something Every Day, both of which are definitely rather a mess, and one which is anything but beautiful. Totally unnecessary. The main problem with this album is that it only has one topic, which makes it very samey from start to finish. There are ways to pep things up a bit, which is where the original version of Something Every Day as well as Secret Love (You're Invisible) come into their own, but such gems are rare to find. You might get away with it when put on as background music to a nice romantic situation, but then there are many other albums out there which can already fulfil this as well as being something to listen to more intently the rest of the time. Weblinks: swingoutsister.co.uk / myspace.com/swingoutsister06

The full track listing is as follows :

1. Something Every Day 2. Time Tracks You Down 3. Butterfly 4. My State of Mind 5. I'd Be Happy 6. Butterfly Lullaby 7. Secret Love (You're Invisible) 8. All I Say, All I Do 9. Out There 10. Beautiful Mess 11. Something Every Day (Little Wizard mix) 12. Butterfly (Little Wizard mix)

Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2008.