Look, Stereophonics it's far too easy to be plain mean, but the title of the Welsh band's seventh album is an open goal. Taken from the currently popularised Second World War propaganda poster, the phrase reeks of ambition free, meat and potatoes, join-the-dots rock; they might just as well have called it Meh! or Shrug.
But enough negativity. It's no mystery what makes Stereophonics so popular: Kelly Jones's instantly recognisable Velcro rasp and his ability to write robust little rock songs with big hooks. What they lack in inspiration they make up for in perspiration and occasionally, as with the fantastic Dakota, they write a song so incontestably great it turns subjective critical opinion to dust.
Keep Calm and Carry On offers only a slight change in emphasis. The sound is leaner than before, featuring more electronics and fewer big guitars, and when it works it's pretty fine. She's Alright is engagingly stupid-simple, a propulsive and decidedly moreish opener that succeeds in pulling off the kind of louche, riff driven rock U2 attempted so disastrously with Get on Your Boots. There's a pleasing glam strain running through I Got Your Number, Trouble is a powerpop blast and the Motown thump of Innocent shows Jones once again obsessing over small-town nostalgia, the protagonists "holding hands, drinking cans in the orange light".
Much of the rest is solid, tidy and obvious, whether it's big ballad Could You be the One?, limper than weekm old lettuce, Uppercut, a poor man's Dakota, or Stuck in a Rut, a puffing bluesy rocker. In honour of their doughty, workmanlike album title, Stereophonics deserve doughty, workmanlike praise: they're a safe pair of hands, and this record does exactly what it promises. There are worse crimes.
But enough negativity. It's no mystery what makes Stereophonics so popular: Kelly Jones's instantly recognisable Velcro rasp and his ability to write robust little rock songs with big hooks. What they lack in inspiration they make up for in perspiration and occasionally, as with the fantastic Dakota, they write a song so incontestably great it turns subjective critical opinion to dust.
Keep Calm and Carry On offers only a slight change in emphasis. The sound is leaner than before, featuring more electronics and fewer big guitars, and when it works it's pretty fine. She's Alright is engagingly stupid-simple, a propulsive and decidedly moreish opener that succeeds in pulling off the kind of louche, riff driven rock U2 attempted so disastrously with Get on Your Boots. There's a pleasing glam strain running through I Got Your Number, Trouble is a powerpop blast and the Motown thump of Innocent shows Jones once again obsessing over small-town nostalgia, the protagonists "holding hands, drinking cans in the orange light".
Much of the rest is solid, tidy and obvious, whether it's big ballad Could You be the One?, limper than weekm old lettuce, Uppercut, a poor man's Dakota, or Stuck in a Rut, a puffing bluesy rocker. In honour of their doughty, workmanlike album title, Stereophonics deserve doughty, workmanlike praise: they're a safe pair of hands, and this record does exactly what it promises. There are worse crimes.
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