Kosheen - 'Damage' (Moshka) Released 10/09/07

‘Damage’ is the eagerly anticipated third studio album to come from Bristol’s trip-hop trio Kosheen. With their previous two releases charting well within the UK top ten and with a monstrous sixteen tracks to its name, expectations for ‘Damage’ are high. The Kosheen sound takes its cues from the renowned Bristol scene, mixing subtle electronica with firmly rooted song structures; but going by this album, the Bristol Sound appears to have changed little from its origins of the early 1990’s and it’s beginning to show its age. And with the recent rise in DIY bedroom electronica, the stakes are high and the ante has been well and truly raised.

‘Damage’ starts well enough; the title track is thoughtfully reserved, brooding, mildly sinister and all offset by a stunningly simple and naturally flowing vocal. It also serves to organically introduce the next track, the recently released ‘Overkill’ which mirrors the opener but with more of a menacing intent. Although in many areas ‘Damage’ can be considered as a triumph, it’s also inherently lacking and with no killer track in sight, you’d rather listen to eight good tracks than sixteen average one’s. It’s a strange situation but whilst sixteen tracks is too much, at the same time it’s also too little. Many of them are for want of a better word, non-committal. And songs such as ‘Guilty’, the up-beat ‘Like A Book’, synth stabbing ‘Chances’ and the harder ‘Professional Friend’ are in essence, disappointingly vacuous and conjure up images of half empty Greek open air clubs where eighteen year old girls from Middlesbrough have drunk far too much Ouzo.

In fact it’s rather annoying as there are some hidden gems buried deep within ‘Damage’. Big, beautiful, dark and creatively spacious with smatterings of pop sensibilities, Kosheen are undoubtedly intelligent musicians and possess a deep knowledge of their chosen craft. ‘Same Ground Again’ is reflective, melancholy and sung with a truly stunning and emphatic vocal, ‘Wish You Were Here’ is unquestionably the bands swansong mixing light and dark and managing to fill un-nerving empty spaces with a deafening minimal noise, and ‘Thief’ is probably the best of the lot, reminiscent of a long motorway journey after a night of excess, where the orange glow of the street lights merge into hazy hypnotic tracers. But at halfway through the album, you begin to wonder if it’s on repeat.

There’s an unexpected upturn with ‘Under Fire’, but what starts out promising to be Kosheen’s 'Teardrop', doesn’t quite hit the mark and the sadness and self-questioning nature of the song is bypassed by the post-production of the vocal. Sian Evans’ voice is quite simply spectacular, but it changes little throughout and doesn’t always succeed in reflecting the nature of the songs. Weather supporting the solidified and ominous beats of ‘Marching Orders’ or lounging around in the chilled out and laid back ‘Analogue Street Dub’ the vocal simply doesn’t change and by definition fails to reflect the instrumentation, in the process loosing some of the interesting lyrical content.

All said and done, ‘Damage’ is not a bad album, but it could and should be better and you expect more from a bands third studio release. ‘Damage’ was originally due to hit the shelves in 2006 and just maybe it’s come a year too late. The album distinctly lacks progression and instead of standing out from the crowd, it blends into the background and the shear volume of material unfortunately becomes tiresome.