| Daily Telegraph. Saturday October 5th 2002. Review by Lynsey Hanley. Saint Etienne have always teetered on the brink of popularity, making commercial records with enough of an elitist edge to guarantee them a number 11 hit every time they make the charts. Theirs was a club you'd want to join, if only they'd have you as a member. At least, that was the case until their last album, The Sound of Water, on which they went a bit weird and post-rock (it was co-produced with German electronic outfit To Rococo Rot) for classic pop tastes. That album's lack of success, even by their own fairly modest standards, seems to have put them on the defensive, if this enjoyable return to old-school form is anything to go by. Even its title - a reference to the shipping forecast, for all you Radio 4 non-listeners out there - feels familiar to a fan of Foxbase Alpha and Tiger Bay. Soft Like Me features one of their familiar "Join our club for sensitive musos" lyrics, rapped with determined precision by new protegee Wildflower, while Action is a great Saint Etienne single to rank alongside He's On The Phone. Shower Scene and the title track, meanwhile, show that they've been keeping up with trends in synth-based pop. |