So… we’ve a bit of South news to catch up on. Sorry about that. Lots of old items to put up, but hey, they may still be a good read and worthwhile to have logged on the site.

First of all, the most recent bit of South-affiliated news comes from… McDonald’s? Check out Will Harper’s crazy antics in a new UK Miccy D advert.

411mania.com reviewed You Are Here, giving the album a rather glowing 8.5 rating:

The background

South have been lingering around the UK music scene for a number of years, having been spotted way back in the late nineties. You may recognize their music from other facets. Their song “Paint the Silence” appeared on The O.C, and several more South tunes can be heard popping up in various Television and Cinema pieces.

For a band once tipped to be the hottest act at the turn of the millennium, South’s career has stuttered through various releases. The bands undeniable versatility has arguably helped and hindered their career thus far - they are known for spanning the genres and flirting mercilessly with many styles and influences. Previous EP’s and albums have focused around elements of Pop, Electro and Indie, which makes it incredibly hard to pinpoint South on the musical map. Whether this is a positive or a negative is down to your own perception.

South’s fifth full-length album You Are Here is the first to be produced internally, as Brett Shaw took over all duties from Dave Eringa. Can this be the record that breaks America? Or will it be the next in a line of frustrating albums for the London-based band?

The music

You Are Here begins in melodramatic fashion with the gripping Rock ballad “Wasted” - a song which flows from sweet to sour with ease and precision. Its hook is the tense verse section which flows into a surprisingly cheery chorus, creating a good opener. The second track “Opened Up” takes advantage of some tactile acoustic rhythms whilst supplementing them with an electronic edge. What this creates is a ballad similar in style to the opener, succeeding in its ability to take the listener through several ups and downs.

“Better Things” is the records first example of South’s Pop-Indie side, a pleasant ditty that is certainly Single worthy. “The Pain” demonstrates yet another shift in styles as the band explores their reggae influences. “Tell Me” gives You are Here an upwards shift in momentum combining Pop and Electro to create a funky danceable number, whilst sneaking in a cheeky nod to Bowie’s hit ‘Changes’ (You gotta love a Bowie reference). “She’s Half Crazy” is an artful exploration into the funkier side of South. If you can imagine Bootsy Collins, Ian Brown and Keith Richards locked in a room somewhere with a few instruments and a large amount of illegal ‘apparatus’ then this song may well occur (after the inevitable fight of course).

Songs like “Lonely Highs” and “Soul Receivers” can shock and delight with their surprising combination of hard rock with softer, Flamenco-style moments. “Every Light Has Blown” is for me, the albums only real blemish - taking a Snow Patrol approach to proceedings. Some may love it, but I find that style of song tedious and whiny. The album closes with “Zither song” which despite featuring a large gap in the middle, takes the listener through the motions moving in between styles in a way which sums up the record perfectly. Considering this is Brett Shaw’s first piece of solo production you have to give him props for an excellently controlled album, which somehow rolls South’s diverse styles together to create a unique and impressive record.

The indierockupstart blog reviewed the album, also giving it an 8.5 and had this to say:

South’s previous three albums have have followed the holy trident of european brit-pop with 2001’s From Here On In sounding like The Stone Roses, 2003’s With the Tides sounding like The Charlatans UK, and 2006’s Adventures in the Underground, Journey to the Stars sounding like New Order. You Are Here, South’s latest release, is the first album that you can’t truly make any comparisons too. Combining elements of all three of their previous albums, it is the first record where you have to say they sound like nobody, but themseleves. This is never more so evident than on the album’s opening track, “Wasted.” A song about a couple lamenting about how they tired of getting wasted, the lyrics unfold over a gorgeous layer of sounds– strings-check, delayed notes - check, gorgeous strumming - check, siren droning in the background - check — its an album highlight. Wasted combines all of the elements fans have come to love about South. The rest of the album follows much of their previous career trajectory, but finds them experimenting with Oasis like perussions and is an album highlight. The album, however, not without its missteps, “She’s Half Crazy” is a hot mess with South bringing a little funk to the proceedings. The song sounds like Ian Brown and Bootsy Collins had an ugly child. Balloons ends far too soon being only 30 seconds long, but those 30 seconds are pure heaven. I wish South had developed it into a full song.

Album closer Zither Song is the highlight of the album and is one of the best songs South has ever written. Over a gentle strum featuring some beautiful zither instrumentation, lead singer, Joel Cadbury laments the process of time. The track finds South operating in space with the drums and crescendo not kicking in until the 2:56 mark. The buildup is worth the wait as it features a kick-ass drumbeat and swirling guitars. At its most, You Are Here is what you expect from South, an experimental consistent affair that features great choruses and epic like instrumentation.

I found the Post Script to this entry rather endearing:

POST SCRIPT. I picked South’s Adventures in the Undergound, Journey to the Stars as the best album in 2006. In making that selection I commented about 2006 not being a great year in music and for me, and picked the South album as the best almost apologetically. Listening to that album again in its entirety, I realize my mistake. That album is a murderer’s row of tunes and rightfully deserves its place as the best album of 2006. I should probably re-write that list at my old blog.

Glasswerk National unfortunately was not as impressed with You Are Here:

onsidering that ‘You Are Here’ is South’s fifth album, I am slightly disappointed by the output. The band show in places that they have all the raw materials to produce a great album, but this effort suggests that the London trio are less than the sum of their parts.

The majority of the album is made up of ambient alt-rock which makes it easy to see how the band was signed earlier in their career by UNKLE maestro James Lavelle. Opening track ‘Waster’ is the best example of this style, and sets a high standard which South fail to consistently reproduce over the course of the album. Musically there are similarities to Death Cab for Cutie, but Joel Cadbury’s vocal rarely reaches the heights of this opening track, sometimes becoming so inaudible that it’s almost unnecessary.

South are at their best when producing atmospheric psychadelia such as ‘There Goes Your Life’, which sounds like Jupiter-era Cave In covering Pink Floyd’s early material and throwing in Beach Boys melodies. Similarly, the grandiose ‘Zither Song’ shows a depth in musical ability and a grand scope which highlights the band’s determination not to be easily pigeonholed.

Unfortunately, South appear to suffer from a tendency to branch out into genres they are unable to fully grasp. ‘She’s Half Crazy’ is a brave attempt to introduce a funkier edge to the album, but it doesn’t work in combination with Cadbury’s Curtis-meets-Gibbard vocal, with the singer seeming more uncomfortable with every passing note.

The music exploration on ‘You Are Here’ does not always fail, with the more textbook indie-rock of ‘Lonely Highs’ and the Strokes-esque ‘Sound Receivers’ putting the band’s talents to best use. Still, South need to play to their strengths, and I’m not sure they are fully aware of what this entails. Sadly, considering that this is the band’s fifth album, I’m unsure whether they ever will.

Surviving the crucible that is the glare of the British music tabloid press takes tough mettle. In a country that builds up musical stars overnight just to burn them down in the morning the speed at which one can fall from NME poster boy to broken down has been is somewhat mind blowing. The boys of South deserve a round of applause then just for surviving, the trio of London high school pals started their career a decade ago amidst a deafening amount of hype thanks to high profile connections (remix work with Ian Brown of the Stone Roses, production courtesy of Mo Wax label head James Lavelle) and have managed to continue cranking out compelling and adventurous rock despite losing flavor of the month status eons ago.

Still combining strains of syrupy chart-topping Brit rock of the Coldplay school (which resulted in placement on former Fox hit The O.C.) with a restless rhythmic spirit and ear for outré instrumentation South give anglophile pop fangs on their just released fourth album, You Are Here. Largely dispensing with the hazy studio atmospherics of prior albums You Are Here features some of South’s most directly melodic material, it’s as if the band suddenly realized that some spritely strummed acoustic guitars and chiming electric axes can add to up to a winning tune all on their own if the hooks are strong enough, as they undoubtedly are on tracks like lead single “Better Things.”

It’s the second consecutive album self-produced by the band’s own Brett Shaw and there’s a noticeable democracy in nearly every aspect of the album, including the vocals. In addition to frontman Joel Cadbury’s feathery pipes usual place in the spotlight songs here feature lead vocal turns by both of South’s other members, Brett Shaw and Jamie McDonald. On tracks like the frantic rave-up “She’s Half Crazy” it’s irrelevant who’s rocking the mic, however, as tape manipulation and sound effects warp the voice into a machine manipulated scramble perfectly suited to the songs oddly alluring inscrutability and ear tickling funkiness.

Another batch of uncompromising and well recorded Brit pop with a few more trumpets and organs and a few less mechanical beats than on prior releases, You Are Here is a satisfying addition to South’s musical story so far, in a book that already has many more chapters than the here-today-gone-tomorrow careers of far too many fellow former UK buzz bands. Jamie McDonald spoke with Revielle from London via telephone about South’s album making methods and the key to their longevity.

Reveille: What’s the process like for you guys at this point with making albums since you have your own studio space and self-record? Do you find yourselves writing in the studio more since you have that luxury?
Jamie McDonald: Typically we demo quite extensively before we start the album proper, this time we left a few songs as just acoustic guitar and vocals before getting into the studio and allowed ourselves to just sort of see what would happen and write the other parts as we went. We had never really done that before and a couple of the songs completed that way turned out to be my favorites on the album. We spent about two months straight just working solidly on the record.

Reveille: At this point could you ever see the band going back to working with an outside producer again or do you prefer keeping it all in house having Brett handle it?
McDonald: I’m not sure how we’re going to feel about it for the next record. We’ve done two records now which were really just the three of us batting it out and we’re happy with how it’s gone and the sound of the records but I wouldn’t rule out working with other people again and having them come in to mix things with a fresh point of view. We’ll just have to see how we feel. It’s a really comforting thing to know that the three of us can make an album totally on our own with the gear that we’ve got. It’s nice to know we’ve always got that to fall back on.

Reveille: Is it a pretty painless process doing it yourselves by this point?
McDonald: It’s definitely not painless, that’s for sure. I have a very low threshold for the amount of times I can listen to a track again and again, luckily Brett has a high tolerance for listening to stuff repeatedly. In that way it kind of works because he’ll do a lot of work on it alone, and then Joel and I can come in and listen back to it and we’ll have a talk about it and give our feedback. Overall we do give ourselves time and space after recording to come in hopefully with fresh ears and revisit the sounds to figure out what works and what doesn’t in certain songs.

Reveille: Although South are certainly know for interesting arrangements and recording techniques I don’t think I’ve ever heard a track from you quite like “She’s Half Crazy” before. Could you describe the process behind that song for me a little and you’re decision to include it on the album?
McDonald: It was one of the songs we weren’t quite sure about putting on the record at one point because it’s pretty out there compared to the rest of it. It grew out of us recording two different songs around the same time that used some of the same parts but really different vocal melodies, we weren’t quite sure what direction to go with either track. Eventually the versions started exchanging parts and kind of morphed into one weird song that’s sort of a wicked party track. Whenever we played it for people it got a strong reaction, some people hated it and some people loved it. That made us know we had to put it on.

Reveille: With everyone in the band proficient in multiple instruments and swapping duties in the studio do you have a set songwriting process within the band or is it pretty wide open?
McDonald: It can work really different ways. What’s cool with this album is it’s kind of the first time that Brett came to the table with finished songs and parts he wanted to sing as well. He was always a part of the process but he never really had finished pieces. We all came to the table with a few songs totally finished for this record and there were others that we left pretty bare and got each other to jam in on. We have a mix of very specific personalities and will all three of us playing guitar, drums and bass it keeps things interesting. We all have different sorts of styles and rhythms we’re comfortable with depending on what instrument we’re playing..

Reveille: Is it difficult bringing songs created that way to the stage since you’re typically not jumping between different instruments all night?
McDonald: Sometimes the sound you got on the record isn’t quite achievable and you just have to go for a different version of it. It’s always a bit of a headfuck to play live and learn each others parts in a way that makes it viable on stage. It’s a bit of work, but after you’ve done the album you’re fed up listening to it anyway and it’s fun to relearn the songs and change them for live performance. I don’t really have any interest in listening to the album at the moment at all but the songs live are really exciting for me. We’re really looking forward to the tour.

Reveille: At this point you guys have been a band for a decade when many of the people who started around the same time of you have already fallen by the wayside. What keeps South together and moving forward as a musical unit?
McDonald: I suppose we just feel like family more so than friends now. We have a really strong bond and we want to make music together regardless of whether we’re getting on that week in the press or not. Occasionally we have to take the odd job because music hasn’t always paid the way but that’s OK, what matters is the band and making music. I’m thinking about the next record already and we’ve already started writing songs. I definitely think we’ll keep going for quite awhile regardless of how this album sells.

Tourists love San Francisco, it’s true. My fine city has given people from the Midwest and Europeans novelty trolley car rides, overpriced food on the wharf, and illimitable photo opportunities that include blocking traffic in North Beach. I like walking up and down during these visitor months and watching dads with the biggest camera in tow arrange his family on the steps of Union Square’s courtyard.

The one thing I wish tourists would figure out, though, is when to visit. San Francisco’s summer is actually in September and October. I see people every year in July in cargo shorts and Hawaiian shirts freezing their collective asses off trying to smile for the family portrait. One of the best kept secrets is to track the weather in the middle of May and June for our annual heat wave, which coincidentally is happening now; the weather beautifully slathers everyone with a nice aroma of salt air, sunscreen, pot hole exhaust, and bum pee, not to mention our world-famous clam chowder. More importantly, though, who doesn’t love introducing a girl from Montana to the madness that is Bay to Breakers?

I mention this whole spiel because I really feel South is one of the U.K.’s best kept secrets - or worst kept, if you think about it. Wednesday night the outfit was in town for their second-to-last show on this tour leg supporting newly released You Are Here; as I perched in the balcony watching the show like a sniper, I wondered where the hell everyone was as I looked down at the thin sea of audience below me. It had been 86 degrees in the city that day, and my dress had stuck to the backs of my legs all day, but I still was there to witness an incredible band.

It’s an unfortunate predicament for a band that is so gifted; lead singer Jaime McDonald has the chops to both rock the house and lull into dreaminess, a rare talent I see in singers these days. McDonald’s voice is both tender and soothing during softer parts like in “Colours and Waves,” tinged with sweetness and harmony. And while You Are Here is a quieter record in terms of acoustics, tracks like “Lonely Highs” deliver a pure alternative sound live, and find the band strutting out the rock star as a result. During “Motiveless Crime,” a sense of urgency and a beguiling bass line captivated the mood, McDonald totally wailing it out during the bridge with sharpness and precision. Collectively, the band seems to know their material like the backs of their hands, which is a seemingly given but is something that is only obtained through hard work and practice.

So why has the band yet to catch on in the States? It’s a question I still ask myself. It’s not like they lack any sort of craftsmanship. South is seriously an honest-to-God, great Britpop band with grand hooks and wonderful rhythm. And I as sat with my feet dangling over the side of the balcony lost in the daydream of their melody, I hoped Britpop was still alive and well in my neck of the woods to recognize these blokes.

You are Here is London-based trio South’s fourth full-length album. After riding a wave of acclaim from a prestigious appearance on The O.C. soundtrack, and Six Feet Under (both the indie music equivalents of playing the Appollo or CBGB’s), it seems like South has decided to do a little experimentation into prog rock territory as envisioned with a little California dreaming crossed with some Brian Wilson orchestration.

Produced by drummer Brett Shaw, it’s a tight elegy of soaring melodies that sound just a little too cobbled together and don’t work as a cohesive whole, but such is the price of taking chances and striking out on your own.

There are several bright spots in the mix however. “Look at me acting at the drama in your life,” croons lead singer Joel Cadbury on lead single “Better Things”, with a dreamy realism worthy of early Smashing Pumpkins.

The sonic highpoint is “Lonely Highs” with Radioheadesque guitars highlighting Cadbury’s even vocal. You are Here actually works better as a soul collage rather than trying to go through the motions with three chord standards.

British trio South have always had a gift for melody and constructing space-y indie-pop somewhere between the Stone Roses and Radiohead. They’ve also had a pension for covering those melodies with layers upon layers of electronics and keyboards in ways that didn’t necessarily detract from the music, but as we learn from their latest release, You Are Here, it masked what they were really good at. Don’t get me wrong, South’s first two records were gloriously hypnotic, but many of their more “produced” songs fell flat on stage, as there was only so much sound three guys could make. The heightened pop sensibility that began to shine on 2006’s Adventures in the Underground Journey to the Stars is brought to the forefront here, as they’ve realized they can achieve that same dreaminess naturally by shedding some of the layers.

South have grown up, but they don’t come right out and say it – it’s more like a show, don’t tell philosophy. The opening few bars of “Wasted” find a heavy siren-like keyboard drone seemingly warning the listener of impending doom. It’s probably the most typical “space rock” on the album, but that darkness is reversed once as the verse kicks in as frontman Joel Cadbury sings that he’s “tired of getting wasted.” Then it’s indie pop gem after indie pop gem until the album’s closer, “Zither Song,” a cerebral and triumphant finale (excluding the hidden track) from a band that sounds like they know they’ve found their identity.

You Are Here is clearly a record from a band that has hit maturity – one that’s comfortable with who they are and what they’ve done, but not one that’s complacent. The soul is a major theme, from seeking balance on “Lonely Highs” (“Chasing all my fears…get to know what’s real”) to the sneaking out the back door, sobriety seeking, “Wasted.” There’s even a track called “Soul Receivers,” with a loud-soft dynamic that transforms to some of the heaviest sounding guitars South have ever used. Still, they manage to sound more at peace with themselves and less brooding than ever but no less trance-worthy. There’s a hush, serene vibe on “The Creeping,” an intricately picked acoustic guitar ditty that’s fits right alongside South’s trippier moments, as does the gorgeous piano ballad, “Every Light Has Blown.” That brighter mood is evident on cuts like “Opened Up,” a perfect pop song of light acoustic guitar and cheerful piano, with the line, “Give yourself a message/pick your face up from the floor.” Most notably is the bouncy, “The Pain,” featuring an angular riff straight out of Franz Ferdinand’s playbook, it’s destined to become an indie rock radio fixture very soon.

You can’t fault a band as talented on as many instruments as South for messing around in the studio to make their sound as lush and cerebral as possible, but they need to be credited for sounding even better when that curtain has been pulled to the side. Of all the bands cast in the wide wake of Radiohead, South has been among the most consistent in trying new things and still managing to deliver great records that don’t sound like they’re copying anyone. Now that they seem to have finally hit their true stride, it’s likely to be South counted among the imitated.

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.

You guys started out with so much plucky enthusiasm: a group of go-getters that were accidentally serving as the bridge between American alt-rock and British dream-pop sensibilities. You were youthful and weird, abstract yet oddly fun. You released some very good albums and made James Lavelle a good amount of money. Then, you jumped ship, landing on the Young American label for 2006’s Adventures in the Underground Journey to the Stars, this time producing everything yourself. The results were decisively mixed, but considering that you guys were still able to make absolutely transcendent songs like “A Place in Displacement”, it was hard to argue against your newfound independence.

Which brings us to You Are Here, an album that’s even more frustrating than your last one. It’s frustrating because, once again, us fans have to wade through the only two types of songs that you guys do: the forgettable ones and the absolutely astonishing ones. You once again produced it yourself, but somehow this disc sounds muddier, trashier, and much, much more lo-fi sounding. It’s not like you guys have suddenly recorded the UK response to Pinkerton (though, admittedly, you lovingly rip off Weezer’s fuzzed-out guitars on “Soul Receivers”), but there’s something distinctly different in the air.

You’ll find critics tossing around the phrase “Beatlesque” a lot in describing this disc, but that’s because you guys have never so blatantly copied ‘60s psych-rock as you do here. On “The Pain”, it feels like you’re trying to compress the entirety of The White Album into one song, hopping from one stylistic touchstone to another without much rhyme or reason. Same goes for the raw-sounding “The Creeping”, an acoustic ballad that breaks down into a pointless 16-bar strum-fest after the first chorus—a strum-fest that is never once again revisited in the song. Why do you do this, South? Are you bored with conventional structure? As your friends, we’re kind of worried.

Just when we think you’ve lost your talent for acoustic humdingers, you then toss us “Balloons”, a transcendent, beautifully arranged ditty that has us enthralled and entranced right up until it ends without any warning! “What just happened?” we ask, soon flipping through our media players only to discover that “Balloons” is, in fact, only 31 seconds long, thereby making one of your best moments one of your shortest ones as well. See what we mean when we say that this album is frustrating?

Yet once we get past the ridiculously short moments of beauty and the somewhat random strong structures (and don’t even get us started on the hidden track that’s played entirely in reverse), You Are Here begins to reveal its treasures to us. “Better Things” is classic South: a flowing chorus, interweaving guitar lines, and simple lyrics about life and love (this time about improvising lines in “the drama of your life”). This time, you even managed to (mostly) ditch the reverb that has so often plagued all your songs (not that we mind it—it’s just a nice change of pace). “Tell Me” is one of those sweet tunes that’s built off of the simplest of guitar riffs, soon adding crunchy drums and heavenly multi-tracked vocals, making for one helluva cathartic experience. Add in the achingly gorgeous “Opened Up” and suddenly we’re hooked all over again.

Yet you always have a secret, South: your albums always have “that one song”, that one track that reminds us of why we love you in the first place and why pop music is never really dead (despite what the cynics around us will occasionally whisper). On You Are Here, that song is called “There Goes Your Life”, and it starts off of pleasant enough: the simple tremolo guitars, the two-tone drum beat, etc. All classic South. Then, thirty seconds in, everything stops for a round of staccato string hits that grabs our ears and absolutely refuses to let go. Sure, we can toss in the “Beatlesque” phrase one more time, but here you’re synthesizing your influences instead of just flat-out copying them. It’s a magic that can’t be fully explained, and there’s certainly not enough singing in it for your label to consider it as a single, but it’s that one song that fans will go crazy for as soon as you play it in concert, that track that diehards will toss onto their “Best of South” mix CDs that they’ll make for friends who have never heard of you guys, and that song that is perfect for just about any mood.

So South, you again have frustrated us: you give us moments of divine pop bliss and some moments of songs that would have best remained on your reel of demos. You don’t always make it easy for us, South, but you’ve never been a band that’s known to treat your fans badly. Once again, we’ll stick around and support you, all while eagerly licking our chops until that next disc comes out. But next time, let’s try not to split the difference, OK? Just a great record all-the-way through? Thanks.

Sincerely,
Your ever-faithful fans

PopMatters gave the album a 6 out of 10.

The Pitchfork review was even less kind giving You Are Here a 4.8 out of 10:

Yeah, this band’s got a Google-hostility unseen since the Music called it a day, so it takes a bit of crafty sleuthing to find the following on South’s MySpace page: “We’ve never been the sort to jump on a bandwagon and start writing Snow patrol (sic) or Keane type ballads to sell more records. Our souls just wouldn’t allow us. The South way has always been to push boundaries and never record the same record twice.” They certainly have the truth on their side: With a subtle individuality, each of their previous four albums were more likely to explore sonic texture than mawkish sentiment, but you have to wonder whether the above statement is borne of stubbornness, pride or denial, considering they’re responsible for one of my most awkward concert experiences– at a 2004 show in Athens, Ga., they got blown off the stage by an exponentially more energetic Metric and then proceeded to limp through their set in front of what couldn’t have been more than two dozen Anglo diehards or alcoholics. Mind you, this was after “Paint The Silence” was prominently featured on “The O.C.”, so I’m not sure if these guys really have the moral high ground.

South still can’t find their compass– You Are Here, despite being titled in a manner of directional certainty, mostly evokes the momentary disorientation of seeing said phrase on a mall map. It’s easily their most raw and direct work to date, but that’s a relative concept for guys who’ve shared studio time with James Lavelle and Dave Eringa. Crispy acoustic numbers like “The Creeping” and “Better Things” won’t be confused for Bon Iver, but in the past, they’d likely be dripping in synth pad strings or two additional minutes of breakbeats. And yet, it’s also South’s most sonically damaged album as well, often inspiring double and triple-checks of the credits to make sure Dave Fridmann wasn’t involved. He’s not, so the next best guess is that you’ve received an unfinished demo, as most of their tricks sound like the work of my high school garage band buying its first digital recorder– a deluge of ideas, way too much technology, and no idea how to use it.

Even though the EQing here often has these poor guys sounding like they’re pressed against a Plexiglas ceiling (the bass guitar might as well be a timpani), vocalist Joel Cadbury is the big loser in all of this; he’s never been the most distinctive singer, sort of an Ian Brown with additional shades of beige. But attempts to bedeck his papery tone with color ends up in boundless self-sabotage. “Wasted” and “Opened Up” are occasionally gorgeous, featuring the sort of chiming delay notes, capo-ed strumming, and crunchy percussion that evokes top-shelf Travis. Yet, on the former, Cadbury is lashed by a sour flange effect that renders the verses meaningless. The latter reverses, as it’s the chorus that sounds like the band’s been transported to a studio trapped inside a steaming tea kettle. “She’s Half Crazy” is all mess, with Cadbury either swimming in some backmasked brine or trying to play catch up while the rest of the guys try out a sort of playful, funk groove that proves South do neither playful nor funk.

If it seems like I’m harping on the production too much, there’s a reason– South have always been more of a cipher than anything, a sort of blank slate where engineers can try out their more outré ideas without having any sort of bold melody or strong lyrical gambit get in the way (think of a British answer to Wheat). The latter’s not so much of a problem, as Cadbury rarely speaks in something other than placeholder or platitude, which might be for the best, considering that “Lonely Highs”, the most topical moment of You Are Here, ends up one of the lamest anti-drug PSAs since Jimmy Eat World’s “Drugs or Me”.

But the insouciant “Better Things” (salvaged from 1999’s obscure Overused) manages to do mushy properly (”the better things look forward to you”), as well as “Every Light Has Blown”, which practically flicks its own Bic with lines like “I’ll do my best to keep you safe.” Get the hint? You Are Here ironically reaches its peaks as South lunges towards the very influences they claim to so conscientiously avoid, meaning this whole thing might not be a problem of production so much as projection. South may be worried about selling out, but in the process, they’re selling themselves short.

See: Extras/Video