Ten years after releasing their calling card, 1997’s Phrase Will get Round, Stereophonics had misplaced none of their penchant for turning out socially aware songs that sat someplace between state-of-the-world handle and native information report. Maybe that may at all times be the way in which for Kelly Jones and Co., a band that is still indomitably tied to their roots in Cwmaman, Wales, but who’ve tasted world success and stuffed stadium venues world wide. Like fellow Welsh firebrands Manic Avenue Preachers, theirs is a novel worldview: one half native boys within the {photograph}, one half chart-topping heroes that went out and conquered. So when their sixth album, Pull The Pin, got here out on October 15, 2007, it was no shock to see it sitting atop the UK album charts every week in a while October 21 – their fifth UK No. 1 in a row.
Little doubt the group’s fiercely dedicated Welsh followers had been as engaged as ever, however songs resembling lead single “It Means Nothing” additionally ensnared the broader populace. A mid-tempo ballad, it noticed Kelly attempt to make sense of the London bombings of July 7, 2007 (“If the bomb goes off again/In my brain around the train/And I hope that I’m with you/’Cause I wouldn’t know what to do”), touching a nerve with the general public and making it to No. 12 within the UK charts (whereas additionally, maybe understandably, resonating with a Belgian viewers that took it to No. 73 of their homeland).
Opener “Troopers Make Good Targets“ left no confusion over what was on Kelly’s thoughts, whereas on “Daisy Avenue“ he turned his consideration to happenings in his personal neighborhood: the deadly stabbing of a teenage boy that left the neighborhood shocked. Elsewhere, “Financial institution Vacation Monday“ proved that the group continued to sit down comfortably within the post-Oasis world of British indie rock, whereas, with its introspective lyrics and hovering refrain, “Stone“ confidently pressed the stadium-anthem button.
Having had a hand in producing the group’s earlier two albums, 2003’s You Gotta Go There To Come Again and 2005’s Language. Intercourse. Violence. Different?, Kelly Jones was additionally by this level comfy within the studio, fashioning, together with co-producer Jim Lowe, a slick, radio-friendly sound that not solely discovered its approach to the highest of the UK charts, however comfortably breached the Prime 40 in 4 different nations. Preserve Calm And Carry On was the identify of Stereophonics’ subsequent album, however as Pull The Pin instructed: with the world in disarray, that was probably Stereophonics’ motto all alongside.
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