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Look beneath the surface sheen, then, and you'll see gratefully receive This Gift as the best, most complete, Sons And Daughters long-player to date.
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Really though, just about any song could be singled out for praise. It's that strong of an album, strong enough to satisfy a desire for tattered glamour, for dramatic, inspired and powerful guitar rock that kind that only maybe the Bad Seeds at their best could once conjure up.
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The viscous, darkly choppy, sexily fulsome and ferociously hard-driving blend of post-punk and country noir that distinguished their long-playing debut, "The Repulsion Box" is still evident, but it's matched with a bracing new breadth, dynamic diversity and myriad light/shade variations.
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It's a party, not a revival meeting, This Gift, but a good one.
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Think The Cramps crossed with the B52s, with a fair dose of Smog and Cat Power thrown in, and you’ll be in the Sons & Daughters picture
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This is a superlative third album, which builds on its predecessors while looking to the future.
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Under The RadarThis band is no one-off, and this is their best work yet. [Winter 2008, p.84]
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MojoThe pace is relentlessly uptempo, but the sheer feisty spirit and conviction with which it is delivered ultimately brooks no argument. [Feb 2008, p.102]
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The twining vocals of Adele Bethel and Scott Paterson may even remind you of X at times, but with Bethel's seductive urgings out front most of the time, This Gift hints at the spunkiest of American female-fronted popsters.
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The biggest critique is that as an album, This Gift is perhaps too far in the red too much of the time, but even that complaint is tempered by the fact that the ride is so good
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They try their best to make a staggering number of genres their own, but ultimately prove themselves to be jacks-of-all-trades, masters of none.
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This Gift flags halfway through when an odd excursion into retro-'60s twaddle gums up the works. [Feb 2008, p.97]
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Meatier, beatier, bigger and bouncier. And all the better for it.
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There’s an exhilarating and ruthless intensity here, mingling the grimness of country murder ballads with the simplicity of girl-group pop.
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There's a maddeningly incremental progression from each Sons and Daughters release to the next, but if the Scottish band is inching slowly toward a breakthrough, at least it has the direction right.
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The menace, exhilaration, and sheer catchiness of the band’s earlier songs, however, have been diminished, leaving pop and rock tunes that rely heavily on Adele’s vocals and a chronically agitated tempo to carry them through to the finish line.
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The album can be charming and downright catchy at times and, depending on your present mood, that may be just good enough.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 9 out of 9
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Mixed: 0 out of 9
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Negative: 0 out of 9
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DwamG.Apr 5, 2008Why are this band not yet global? Music to be frightened by.
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JoshK.Feb 2, 2008
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GuillaumePopFeb 2, 2008Good Inspiration from the late 60's, 70's (Shocking Blue, Iggy...) but i'm not sure of its efficiency. Anyway, i love this band!