1. Aeon 3:46
2. Golden Dawn 5:31
3. Nothing Can Wrong 5:26
4. Revolution 3:57
5. Castle Of Heroes 7:42
6. Machine 4:55
7. Higher State 5:34
8. Dolls 5:59
9. Crystalling 4:29
We initially caught South Central back when they were touring with The Whip, and to say we were impressed is something of an understatement. With so many bands playing the Nu-Rave card at the time, it would have been easy to be underwhelmed. So few bands make the electro/rock crossover seem effortless but South Central made it all seem so graceful. They bought together two seemingly diametrically opposing forces and made it sound perfect.
On the live stage there are five of them, all skin and bone, and hooded tops. They pound away on keyboards, mixing as they go, and produce what used to be called banging tunes.
In the studio South Central number just two, but the effects are similar. Massive danceable tunes populate The Owl of Minerva, and point towards a band who is not scared to sound a little bit rough when making music to dance to.
That's ultimately what South Central is about - dancing. Sure, this is aggressive stuff at times and when you catch them live they seem to be smashing their keyboards like fists to the face but this is stuff to party to. Stick this on and people will move, so will the walls, the floor, and the neighbours.
The Owl of Minerva has been knocking about for a little while now, although it is only now getting a release in Britain. For some reason it was only originally available at gigs and in Japan, but now it's been revamped with an extra song and is finally being unleashed. It's not an album in the strictest sense, more a collection of old singles and the like while the band finish up their debut album. It hangs together perfectly though and showcases a band that are destined to make an impact before too long.
South Central's greatest asset is managing to bridge the gap between rock and dance so perfectly. They manage to take lumps of old classics and recycle them in a new way. Interestingly, so often they seem to return to the grizzled heroes of indie The Fall.
Taking the basic riff to Big New Prinz and building Nothing Can Go Wrong around it is nothing short of genius. To then replicate Mark E Smith's drawl on Machine is even more inspired, not least because the tune that propels it through a gurning world of underground clubs is stolen wholesale from 808 State's Cubic (a song which in itself was as much a rock record as it was dance). They then turn their attention to Josh Wink's Higher State of Consciousness and give it a new state of consciousness (hyperventilating and nodding out in a gutter seeing as you ask).
South Central will doubtless be lumped in with other bands that seemingly do the same thing, but to do so would be doing them an injustice. This is rough and raw dance music with real attitude that the likes of Klaxons just don't seem to possess. With any luck we'll see them starting the dance up and down the country.
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