Deus - Keep You Close

Bit of a divisive one around the office, this one. When we first tried to listen to it Brian stormed in and switched it off not once but twice. We even dug the reissued Worst Case Scenario out for a listen yesterday after Business Lady wasn't into this, and it still sounds totally brilliant. I actually think that aside from a couple of weak tracks this is a pretty strong album. They're not as sparse and dynamic as they used to be, opting instead for a heavily produced sound with lush instrumentation and very little of the raw edge the first couple of albums had, but I reckon if you liked their last couple of albums none of that will either be a surprise or a concern. For those of you who aren't so familiar with their back-catalogue, I would strongly recommend starting out with that Worst Case Scenario reissue I mentioned earlier before you get involved with the newer stuff because that's an all-time indie classic. Aaaanyway, back to the album at hand. It starts pretty strongly with the title track with is a rousing indie rock number with sweeping strings, but they lose their way pretty badly on the third and fourth tracks where they seem to be channeling their inner Nickelback. However 'Ghost' pops up afterwards with fruity horns and unselfconscious euro-pop rapping and things start to look up. In fact after those two couple of songs I think things start to loosen up a bit and the songs are, while still a bit patchy, quite inventive and varied, with some soul and early r'n'b and funk influences becoming surprisingly effective at times, such as on the downbeat, rainy-streets balladeering of 'The End of Romance'. The piano sounds really good on this record, too. The quieter songs are where the real strengths of this record lies, and when they bust out the rockers I feel like the super-polished production just drags it straight into radio blandness. Epic album-closer 'Easy', by far the most dynamic song on the record, is probably the closest to the dEUS sound I'm fondest of. There's more than enough here to keep the long-term fans happy, though.