The Beautiful South - Gaze

Gaze is the eighth album from the Beautiful South and their first in three years since 2000's Painting It Red. The album continues in the vein of previous works featuring their distinctive brand of jazzy pop topped with Paul Heaton's witty lyrics. 11 tracks. Universal. 2003. Album Description

Superb renewal in B. South's career

It is virtually criminal that "critics" are allowed to pen the vile driven seen on this page. So what are we to make of a review that BEGINS with "the world doesn't need..." -- any axes to grind here? Well, fans of great music, you don't need to worry: Beautiful South are quite alive and doing very well. "Painting It Red" was not an easy album, and left many folks scratching their heads because it didn't quite fit with their "happy-go-lucky cynics" image; for me, it is their grotesquely underrated, rather intensely melancholy masterpiece. A few years later, without North American distribution, "Gaze" follows it up with one of their most acoustic and sharply percussive albums. Just listen to the production of the guitar and cymbals! "Critics" are clearly so ill at ease with B. South because P.D. Heaton and company are so unconcerned with what it takes to keep a band at the edge of coolness and they do such odd things: this musical partnership revels in the power of the human voice, then spin it in all directions with such intense and tense lyrics -- followed up by a passionate or tender song, enough to keep us thinking and laughing. "Gaze" is fresh and passionate and new, and the Heaton/ Rotheray partnership is as sparkling as ever. February 13, 2006

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