The Hours - See The Light

It's all down to the Damien Hirst factor, really: he provides the cover art and is the chief financier of The Hours. Throw in endorsements from Zane Lowe and Jarvis Cocker, and Flood on production duties, and you can see why the major, established music press are bound to give a nod, while the more maverick critics will be drawing attention to the whiff of old-boyism that seems to surround the affair.

But in honour of Anthony Genn's frank lyrics, we say bollocks to the politics. It's all about the music, after all. And on See The Light the music is... well, okay. Ish. It's the kind of album you tend to think of as reliable.

This is most noticeable with the opening four tracks, which merge fairly seamlessly into one another on the back of Coldplay-esque piano chords; choppy, hyperactive drums; and time signatures that are a bit reminiscent of a pacemaker. Come On is the worst offender here, coming off like something that Take That would quite happily take on.

2009 has, so far, been an exciting year for music, with innovative, brilliant releases clamouring for attention every week. Compared to some of these, See The Light isn't genre-bursting. But does it have to be in order to be a good record? This will probably depend on the listener. And The Hours plough the soft-rock option pretty well. The tunes are catchy, immediate and pleasant, if not hugely exciting.

However, after the monotone twilight of the album's opening segment, Car Crash cranks the pace up. Genn snarls: "Me and you were just a car crash baby/ if you wanna slow down to take a look/ I hear you've been trying hard to engage me/ well maybe I just don't really give a fuck".

There's something about the way the drawled expletive plays off against the tinkling piano that is reminiscent of the beloved and bad-mouthed Arab Strap. Genn is flattering to deceive, though, as the stadium rock guitar kicks in and he hollers: "there's a light at the end of the tunnel".

Lyrically, the album is, well, a bit of a car crash. On Big Black Hole, Genn sings, "I'm going to tell you something you might not wanna hear". But he doesn't. Instead he's going to tell you that "life was so much simpler then"; that "talk is cheap"; and "these days the honest man is an endangered species". Honesty was never so dull.

So let's just say this one falls somewhere between good and awful. It probably fits snugly into the guilty pleasure category, for when you don't want your brain challenged too much, and want something with which to hum along. You might even want to dance around your room like it's 1999 and everyone still thinks the YBAs are still relevant. Ah, sorry, Damien - couldn't resist.

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