REVIEW: Stereophonics, Word Gets Around (V2)
- Tim Kennedy
The Stereophonics actually emerged from rural obscurity during the previous year and this album has been out in the UK for some months, but the band have just become the surprise gatecrashers of the 1998 awards circuit in the UK. These Welsh veterans of many a record company refusal letter allegedly take their inspiration from such luminaries as AC/DC.
But, they are no leaden-footed blues metal merchants. Their guitars are often played with punkoid fury, but the songs are well-turned instant pop classics. Perhaps only the Teenage Fanclub in years gone by have managed a similar light touch conveyed upon heavy guitars.
The lyrics immediately strike the listener with their intelligence, and thought-provoking couplets leap out constantly; 'it takes one tree/ to make a thousand matches/ but it only takes one match/ to burn a thousand trees' ("A Thousand Trees"). "Traffic" speaks of searching for a place in life - 'Wait tables for a crook? Write a hard back book? You teach your kids to read? Sell your body on the street?', and is sung superbly by Kelly Jones who must havethe best rock voice to emerge since Liam Gallagher. Jones trades in unstoppable streams of images, tumbling over each other as they pour forth '...as the rumours start to fly/ you can hear them in the school yard/ scrap yard/ chip shop/ phone box/ in the pool hall/ at the shoe stall...' ("A Thousand Trees"). Jones could sing the telephone book and make it sound of desperation, but these lyrics are some of the finest heard for years. This band does not trade in lovelorn laments, nor vague anthemic platitudes, but in the stuff of everyday existence.
There is more than one song here about small town suicide (including the title track), and the majority of the lyrics are about battling against everyday life in depressed South Wales, but really it could be anywhere. The songs and the voice speak about real experiences, and there are no platitudes here, only compassion.
Musically they are straightahead rock'n'roll, but the Stereophonics more than prove that there are still places to go with this much-maligned genre. The confidence with which they play is thrilling to hear. At one point they even launch into a Madness-style piano solo, and it works superbly as you might expect.
Great lyrics are rare enough these days. Allied to a sure songwriting touch and great playing ability and sung with such superb panache, nothing can stop this band except maybe success itself.
