Shape Of The Shape

Album review
By Chris Long
Producer, BBC Manchester Introducing

If you were to sum up Starless & Bible Black's second album, Shape Of The Shape, in one word, it would have to be eclectic.

Including everything from country rhythms to French pop, it is a collection that deviates and diverts as often as it dances and dallies.

Such things won't be surprising to existing fans of the band, as it picks up where their eponymous debut left off, meandering through psychedelic folk and experimental rock with joyful abandon.

Where Shape Of The Shape differs from its predecessor though is that the adventuring has given rise to confused results this time around.

Thus, once the fine opening pair of toe-tapper Say Donny Say and Your Majesty Man's epic pop are left behind, the energy built up within them falls slowly away.

Both Hanging On The Vine and the closing Year Of Dalmatians spoil themselves by lingering too long, where a truncation could have saved them, while the discordance of Radio Blues sits too heavily to be pleasurable.

That's not to say that Shape Of The Shape is a disaster; those first two tracks plus the gentle swoon of Country Heir make it a worthwhile endeavour.

It is simply that too many ideas and too much experimentation have been pushed into the mix. Had they pared things back and kept things simple, it might have been sensational - as it is, it's nearer to satisfactory.

Shape Of The Shape is out on Static Caravan