Stereophonics 'Keep Calm And Carry On' (Mercury) Released 16/11/09

Some people really do themselves no favours. Take the Stereophonics for example, long time subjects of ridicule and adversity due in no small part to their lumpen, worthy stodge rock that hasn’t shown any signs of advancement or inventiveness in over a decade. Now onto album number seven, ‘Keep Calm And Carry On’, a record whose unremarkable title depicts little more than a total lack of ambition and state of the art ordinariness. And yet, turn the clock back to 1997’s ‘Word Gets Around’ and you’d find a band genuinely regarded as the pre-millennium saviours of British rock.

Of course it hasn’t all just been safety deposited humdrum by the bucketload since then. Occasionally, Kelly Jones and his ever-changing accomplices have penned the odd artefact of bedazzling ingenuity. 1999’s ‘Pick A Part That’s New’ and 2005’s ‘Dakota’ are two that immediately spring to mind, the first for at least managing to demonstrate that not all forms of balladry need be tawdry and irksome, the latter for briefly suggesting the Stereophonics may have actually incorporated electronics into their wholesome tradrock diet, not to mention constructed arguably their most exquisite five minutes to date.

Unfortunately, moments like these have been too few and far between, hence the exasperated groans that greet the arrival of this latest offering. Extended to a four-piece they may be (touring guitarist Adam Zindani is now officially a full-time member) not to mention left in the capable hands of esteemed producer Jim Abbiss, a man whose past works include UNKLE’s ‘Psyence Fiction’ and the Arctic Monkeys’ ‘Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not’, ‘Keep Calm And Carry On’ represents little more than Stereophonics-by-numbers, which is pretty much a case of as-you-were for as long as anyone would care to remember.

Even the songs themselves reveal little in the way of mystery or adventure, lead single ‘Innocent’ offering nothing more than a pointless re-write of Rolling Stones classic ‘Let’s Spend The Night Together’ into the bargain. Elsewhere, ‘Keep Calm…’ is littered with earth-ridden cliché (“Never let this world drag you down” urges ‘Beerbottle’) after cliché (‘Show Me How’ asks “I want you to show me and shine me the light”), all strewn together by second-hand riffs and Jones’ irritating gravely rasp like a badly botched wardrobe in a second hand store.

Sadly this record will no doubt sell in droves, particularly with the festive season on the horizon. What’s more, the one-gig-a-year folk that make up the majority of Stereophonics fanbase will lap this up like a re-enactment of the Last Supper, safe in the knowledge that the wheel Kelly Jones has been pushing for so long is still turning vapidly in the same direction. For the rest of us however, it isn’t so much a case of keep calm and carry on, but more one of do us all a favour and give up. Somehow, I can’t imagine Kelly Jones caring one iota…