Much like Oasis, Stereophonics made two great albums in the 90s but never did a great one again. Their debut Word Gets Around and 1999 follow-up Performance And Cocktails were full of spine tingling, soaring stadium anthems such as A Thousand Trees, Local Boy In The Photograph, Hurry Up And Wait, Pick A Part That’s New and Just Looking, songs that have endured and ensured that the band continue to fill huge venues and festivals to this day.
Okay, singer and sole songwriter Kelly Jones has written the odd banger (Dakota, Maybe Tomorrow, Graffiti On The Train) along the way, but his band have rarely managed to recapture the magic of those first two records.
Along with big songs, those albums were also filled with relatable hometown tales about tragic loss at a young age (Local Boy In The Photograph, Billy Davey’s Daughter), reputations destroyed by village rumours (A Thousand Trees), and being miserable with your lot in life (Hurry Up And Wait). While Jones continues to write impressionistic songs, few of them strike a chord quite like the early days.
Unfortunately, the same applies on Make ’Em Laugh, Make ’Em Cry, Make ’Em Wait, Stereophonics’ thirteenth album. It’s a record that promises to be “devoid of any fat or filler”, and with just eight songs on offer you’d certainly expect them to deliver.
Sweeping, string-laden opener Make It On Your Own makes a grand enough entrance as Jones gives hope to those ‘trapped under the ice’ that they’ll ‘swim in better times’. Recent single There’s Always Gonna Be Something is a little lazy lyrically, but musically it will undoubtedly fire up the masses on the band’s forthcoming anthems tour and fit snugly into their back catalogue of greatest hits. Mary Is A Singer, meanwhile, is a charming, jaunty upgrade on Step My Old Size Nines with its Dylan-like harmonica.
But ballads including Colours Of October and Feeling Of Falling We Crave can’t match stone-cold acoustic classics such as Traffic or Handbags And Gladrags (the latter of course a cover). The solitary rock number on the album, Eyes Too Big For My Belly, meanwhile, is spiky enough, but it’s no Bartender And The Thief. Stereophonics are clearly past their best now. And although this record certainly has its moments, long gone are the days when their albums really were all killer.
