Holed up near Seville in Spain, the ever fruitful songwriting partnership of Paul Heaton and Dave Rotheray went into hyper-drive, yielding 28 songs for The Beautiful South's seventh studio album.
It's good to know that, more than a decade into their career, the South's creative well has not run dry. After all, their warm-hearted, human and openly emotional blend of tender ballads, upbeat pop and low-down sinister grooves has become part of the nation's furniture since they emerged from the ashes of The Housemartins in 1989.
And while it's great that Heaton and Rotheray's creative surge has made 'Painting It Red' a 'value for money' double album -20 tracks on a limited edition double CD, 19 tracks on a single UK CD and 17 tracks on the European and Canadian version- it does make the album slightly heavy going in places. Half way through you find yourself feeling that perhaps -to increase your listening pleasure- a few of the weaker tunes could have been omitted and relegated to future B-sides.
But that's just being Mr Picky from Fussyville, Grumpshire. For in this hour and a quarter long opus there are plenty of quality songs to get excited about. Most of them, strangely enough, are crammed into the second half -so those with short attention spans or hectic schedules will probably never hear them.
Take 'The River', an epic, string-swathed musing upon that conundrum called life, with 'Albatross'-style guitar noodlings and Hovis advert brass. Or the dark, Clash-like, trickling piano and funky/dubby groove 'You Can Call Me Leisure' -lyrics originally penned to be read out at a friend's funeral.
'10,000 Feet' is a warm and spritely piano-led duet on the dilemma of relationships between Heaton's cracked choir-voice and Jacqueline Abbott 's lullaby country tones - Heaton's character musing "The part of love that I'm scared of is the actual taking off/I can take a bumpy landing but the start must be soft".
'Hot On The Heels Of Heartbreak' finds the pair in another duet with sunshiny, country-twanging guitar, while 'The Mediterranean' finds the husky-voiced Dave 'Hamster' Hemingway -one of the South's great strengths lies in their three fine vocalists- having a dreamy, 'life-affirming moment' down by the sea.
The moving slowie 'Property Quiz' sounds a tad like the Housemartins circa 'The People People Who Grinned Themselves To Death' with some dance-style, synthy warblings in the background -probably provided by old mucker Norman 'Fatboy Slim' Cook, listed in the credits for his 'Open Groove Surgery'.
Subdued album closer 'Chicken Wings' meanwhile, is a sparse piano/acoustic guitar ballad with Heaton's plaintive tones serenading the emotionally crippled. A truly moving, tear-stained ending.
In fact so good is the second half of 'Painting It Red' that it feels like a separate, self-contained album. Add a few of the other tracks -recent groovy single 'Closer Than Most', the sad synthy lollop of 'Just Checkin'- about a widow who convinces herself that her husband isn't dead, just holed up in a boozer on a bender somewhere- the bright Radio Four breeze of 'Til You Can't Tuck It In' -an ode to old age and a reprise of 'Miaow's 'Prettiest Eyes'- and the ominous sounding 'Half-Hearted Get (Is Second Best)'- with prancing piano straight out of the Lovin Spoonful's 'Summer In The City'- and you've got yourself a nigh perfect Beautiful South album.
In fact, to these ears, if the South were to drop a few of those sentimental country ballads that they perfected back with 'A Little Time' and got a bit angrier ('I Think The Answer's Yes') or funkier ('Hooligans Don't Fall In Love') every now and again, they'd be just about the best combo going. But then that's just being Mr Picky again.
