Back in 2001 when UK rock was struggling under the weight of the US led garage invasion, this Leeds quartet were briefly hailed as the future, by over eager hacks looking for something to make a fuss about. As it turns out their self-titled debut was a decent enough record but was never going to mark them out as the next U2, which is probably what they had hoped.
Certainly, in Robert Harvey they have the shamanic frontman with the big piercing vocals, big hair and big proclamations about being the next big thing. Then, of course, there’s the name, which either came about as the result of little imagination or Viagra-induced arrogance; one suspects it’s a combination of the two. Despite this, "Welcome To The North" struggles to mark them out as anything more than average.
The Music don’t do subtly. Theirs is a world of Led Zeppelin guitars, baggy beats and huge anthems. It all starts off well enough with the taut opening title track, a neat guitar line gives way to rhythmic drums, a big chorus, psychedelic licks and Harvey wailing some nonsense about “seeing numbers”. Unfortunately they then try to repeat the trick for the next ten tracks. It’s hard to write eleven different songs and make them sound as similar as The Music do here but somehow they manage to pull it off.
"Freedom Fighters" is a cross between Toploader and Van Halen (yes that bad). "Bleed From Within" is a decent tune but is clearly The Music’s attempt to do U2, though Robert Harvey does pull off a weird primeval vocal grunting style at the close which makes this a lot more fun than most of the other tracks. Similarly, "Open Your Mind" is an emotionally wrought rocker that again mimics Bono and co. The one slow tempo ballad – "Fight The Feeling" – is certainly delivered with feeling but comes too close to a dirge-fest for comfort.
It’s not that "Welcome To The North" is a bad listen, but when you get to track six and you still seem to be stuck on track one, you get the feeling there must be more to ‘the music’ than this.
