The Beat Surrender

Morcheeba produced one of my favourite albums of all time with the brilliantly chilled out vibe of Big Calm back in the 90’s. From start to finish it was a delight, The Sea opened the album and set the tone and not a note was wasted right through to the title track that closes the album.

Unfortunately after that they seemed to lose their way a little bit and tensions in the band didn’t help. They may have sold six million albums in total (no really they have) but albums like Charango and Fragments Of Freedom were disappointing at best.

After Charango lead-singer Skye left the band and with her went an essential ingredient in my eyes. While they may not all have been getting on and weren’t happy about the direction they were going in, she had a unique voice which they didn’t successfully replace on The Antidote.

No longer wishing to work with a permanent singer the Godfreys have this time drafted in a raft of guest vocalists, ranging from relative unknowns from MySpace through to Thomas Dybdahl who is a huge star in his native Norway. The end result is that some vocalist work out better than others and the album feels a little bit pieced together rather than flowing smoothly.

Enjoy The Ride (current single) opens proceedings well enough with an easy paced feel to it, unfortunately that is followed up with the five and a half minute Riverbed which sounds like a watered down Tom Waits. This is followed up by a plodding instrumental (Thumbnails) and a strange kind of sea shanty crossed with downbeat, chillout.

Gained The World is one of the best tracks on the album with a really nice female vocal courtesy of Frenchwoman Manda despite the slightly cheesy lyrics One Love Karma has a nice hip-hop flow to it. Au-dela follows this and completes a decent hat-trick of tracks in the middle of the album.

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