CMJ review
CMJ reviews You Are Here:
The visual daydream on the cover of South’s new album serves as a handy metaphor for the vertiginous sonic delight waiting inside. The intricate, golden-hued drawing on a black background of a stage features a drum-set, amps and a mic—oh, and a sword-brandishing knight riding a unicorn, pyramids, a castle, a giant brain marked “here” that spews musical notes and a handful of objects that can’t even really be identified. The UK trio delivers an intimate-yet-soaring, ambitious fourth LP in You Are Here. It marks a significant departure from their trademark post-electronica sound, and while much of the breezy fun remains, Deep Thoughts and Big Issues have joined the party, lifting South to a new level.
Joel Cadbury, Jamie McDonald and Brett Shaw—BFFs since meeting as teenagers at Haverstock Secondary School in London—launch the album with “Wasted,” a melodic examination of the tiresome aspects of getting, well, wasted all the time. The slightly twee theme and airy vocals are grounded with a little help from their friends: Tom Phillips on the piano and Rob O’Neale, who plays an especially plaintive trumpet. Change-fearing fans will welcome “She’s Half Crazy,” a fun disco dance-floor flashback that also serves as a light, half-time track couched by the record’s predominantly darker fare. And of course, such a moribund collection can’t exist without a ballad bemoaning a doomed love affair. “Every Light Has Blown” acknowledges the complexity, darkness and, ultimately, solitude of romance, successful or no. The album’s conclusive track, “Zither Song,” is a sprawling, mysterious affair containing three minutes of silence, a weird pocket of quiet that forces you to sit back and think about what you heard, that builds until the suspense becomes overpowering. (”Wait, is it going to come back on?” you’ll think. “Is there something wrong with my headphones?”) But then, just as abruptly, it returns, the tension is forgotten and you bounce back into South’s unhinged, spacey embrace.
