Reviewed by Jon Cooper

Manchester's The Ambersons, according to their press release, are showing "how far the boundary of experimental electronic rock and even folk music can be taken and refined". It's a bold claim, which is partially justified; they are indeed bringing the boundaries of the genre into focus - by staying safely within them. The songs are decent enough and recall some of Super Furry Animals' more anthemic moments. In fact, the chorus of opener "A Little Love" could've been discarded on a studio floor by the Welsh maestros, and by the time "The New Adventures Of Superman" rolls around, you're wondering if someone has stuck on 'Rings Around The World' without you noticing. But if adding in the odd synthesised bleep and whizz constitutes the refining of a genre's boundaries, then we're going to end up in a world in which the "organic music" The Ambersons claim to represent is nothing more than a confused, inauthentic, inaccessible mess that panders to a gadget-defined generation. On that note, it's interesting that the standout track is the closer, "A Beautiful Mistake", the song that is by far the least organic, sounding as it does like The Flaming Lips and My Morning Jacket covering a Prince b-side.

The opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those held by Cross Rhythms. Any expressed views were accurate at the time of publishing but may or may not reflect the views of the individuals concerned at a later date.

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