by
South
- Record Label: Young American
- Release Date: Apr 4, 2006
- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
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Fans of Badly Drawn Boy's Have You Fed the Fish? and Doves' Some Cities should understand Adventures in the Underground Journey to the Stars.
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FilterThere's a newfound emotionality here. [#19, p.93]
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Even with a couple of clunkers, “Adventures in the Underground Journey to The Stars is without question South’s best effort to date simply because it has done more to command the listener’s attention.
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While sometimes dreamy and ethereal, South are able to bridge quieter moments with danceable, gloomy pop – simply speaking, a great achievement.
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An abundance of hook-laden choruses, New Order analog-boogie and Stone Roses-cool could not be more frustratingly baked into this crumbly crust.
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What they’ve offered up is something that sounds like the Brit-jangle of the Stone Roses but less optimistic, a bit ballsier, and ultimately not as compelling.
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South have an ear for melody, uniformly excellent production values, and a good sense of dynamics; all of which manifests itself in some very satisfying melodic Brit-pop.
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Adventures is a bright, beautifully wrapped package filled with nothing but styrofoam packing peanuts.
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Under The RadarWhere the album falls short is with the incessant and often redundant ballads. [#13, p.88]
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While the tunes on Adventures may be a bit more nebulous and a bit less intricate than those found on From Here on In and With the Tides, they are by no means any less engaging, and in some cases are even more resplendent.
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Overall, South are in roughly the same place they've always been, making good post-Britpop music that sounds fantastic and sometimes erupts in a moment of unadulterated brilliance.
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They're not completely terrible. Their music won't damage your ears or insult you, it's just quite spectacularly dull.
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Parts of this record sound more like final clasps of desperation rather than any forward progression.
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UncutThe London trio have wheeled in so many trunkloads of technical expertise to embellish the material that it starts to stagger under its own weight. [Nov 2006, p.128]
User score distribution:
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Positive: 7 out of 10
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Mixed: 1 out of 10
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Negative: 2 out of 10
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MikeyCMay 10, 2007
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AlexJMay 14, 2006
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JoMay 12, 2006