Having washed up in the wake of Oasis’success, stadium-filling Welsh pub rockers Stereophonics are clearly only too aware of the shifting temper of the times, hence their reinvention here as keepers of the soul-funk flame. Their fourth album sees them attempt the same move The Charlatans made with their last LP, but less successfully. Kelly Jones’ laryngitic bellow?which makes Rod Stewart sound like a castrato?is applied to Stones-y epics and sub-Weller workouts, both of which strive for rock’n’roll authenticity but ultimately just prove how lacking in soul the trio really are.
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