Sounds From The Junkshop #64 - South

 

"Love and nights cause sparks tearing us apart, streetlights fade it cuts my heart, knowing that the time is past" - South - Colours In Waves

Every so often you get a group who come along doing something which is genuinely different to everything else on the scene at the time but through no fault of their own, kind of end up being undone by just not really being able to fit in anywhere and get lost in the shuffle over time. North Londoners South were very much one such band. Emerging at the dawn of the millennium, they seemed to be a band who never quite seemed sure what their strongest hand was sound-wise and while this led to them putting out an impressively varied output, it also ultimately sunk them.

I first heard of them via Paint The Silence, their sixth single but first hit - I think I was drawn to it because it sounded a bit like a solo Ian Brown song and had similar chillout vibes to it. This was about a year after the whole "skunk rock" thing had petered out (see previous entries on Delakota, the Regular Fries etc) but the similarities were definitely there. Interestingly, upon doing a little bit of research into them, it seems that ol' King Monkey was actually a friend and mentor to the band when they were starting up - they were protegees of James Lavelle who was the guy behind the UNKLE indie-dance project which Brown collaborated with a few times and probably explains the connection. South were originally signed to Lavelle's Mo'Wax label which left them in the odd position of being a guitar band signed to a label that predominantly specialised in electronic music which probably didn't help them in terms of really fitting in anywhere in spite of their high-profile connections.

Despite Paint The Silence being used on an episode of then-ubiquitous rich brat drama series The OC and its follow-up Keep Close being used on Match of the Day at least once, chart success wasn't forthcoming - the former just grazed the Top 75 while the latter stalled outside it. I picked up the group's debut album From Here On In shortly after Keep Close and while it had its moments (as well as the two singles, I Know What You're Like and By The Time You Catch Your Heart both stood out) it was just a bit too big and sprawling at 70 minutes and 15 tracks to really bear up to repeated listening. I mean don't get me wrong, I can actually forgive albums being one hour plus as long as they've got the tunes to draw you in but From Here On In was just a bit too hit and miss to really work - in that sense it was a bit like Ultrasound's Everything Picture from a couple of years before. I did go and see them live a couple of times around this point and they seemed to work a bit better there - similar to the Beastie Boys the group comprised of three multi-instrumentalists so it made them interesting to watch and the live shows did seem to cut out a bit of the flab that the debut album suffered from in places.

Soon after From Here On In, South would sever their ties with Lavelle and strike out on their own, signing to the much more rock oriented Sanctuary record label (run by Iron Maiden manager Rod Smallwood). They drafted in Dave Eringa, best known for his work with the Manics, as producer for their second album and it was here that they really came into their own in my opinion. Lead-off single Loosen Your Hold was a sinister paranoid slowie complete with strings and banjo but it was its follow-up Colours In Waves which was the real standout with its panic attack lyrics about the confusion of every day life ("These colours before my eyes, I'll be forever colourblind"). There was a definite hint of the Manics about it, one part Gold Against The Soul and one part Everything Must Go and it was one of my favourite songs of 2004 (I know, tallest dwarf contest and all that) and one that I still listen to now.

South's second album With The Tides saw them shaking off their identity crisis in fine style to deliver something genuinely good - with a more streamlined guitar heavy sound with a bit of orchestration added for extra oomph, it felt like the band had properly come into their own with the likes of Motiveless Crime and Straight Lines To Badlands showing real progress. Unfortunately they released it straight into the teeth of the post-Strokes garage rock explosion and although they at least now had an identifiable sound, it sadly wasn't one that was in vogue at the time. The album bombed the same as its predecessor did, Sanctuary dropped them and South would go on hiatus towards the end of 2004.

The group would return in 2006 with a new single called A Place In Displacement and I actually remember reviewing it for Leeds Music Scene but while it was decent enough, it didn't really pique my curiosity enough to check out the subsequent album Adventures In The Underground Journey To The Stars (which I suppose you could blame on the fact that I'd well and truly severed my ties with "indie" music in favour of more scuzzy glam-punk stuff by this point) and that's kind of where my journey with South came to an end to be honest. Looking at the band's Wikipedia page, they managed a further album in 2008's You Are Here before splitting again only to reunite last year with a new album From Here On Out seeing the light of day earlier this year. I may check it out in the near future so there's a chance a review may be forthcoming if it's any good.

South were a funny one really - a band who when they were on form really could surprise you but the fact that they were so all-over-the-place musically and never really settled on a defining sound I think was what really hurt them in terms of chart success. Still, I'd definitely recommend With The Tides, especially to those who liked the Manics' late '90s output and From Here On In has enough decent moments tucked in there to make it worth a curiosity listen. If nothing else, Colours In Waves remains an all time classic in my opinion and you really should give that one a listen.