BRONZE - A Common Prayer (Malady Music)
This Newcastle trio have been together for a couple of years, and have had two singles and an album released by US independent label Bus Stop, but this is their first for Malady Music. 'Weight Of The World' pretty much sums up the band, being a delicate pop song with world-weary lyrics. With titles like 'Good Has Gone', 'Can't Laugh', and 'Lonesome Touch' you could be forgiven for thinking that they would be a perfect bed-sit band, but they can also rock out when they want to - witness 'This Paradise' and the afore-mentioned 'Can't Laugh'. They do sound a lot like 80's bands such as Blue Nile or Aztec Camera on some tracks - most notably the quieter ones - and that feeling does rather overwhelm this album. I feel that if it had come out ten years ago this could a band to watch out for, but they fall between two stools by being neither as aggressive as Muse nor as melodically memorable as Coldplay. This is a perfectly agreeable album while it is playing but it is hard to recall much about it once it is over, which is a shame as the band have obviously put a lot of effort into it to produce such a professional piece of work.