Paul Heaton & Jacqui Abbott - Manchester Calling 3/5
At 16, (yes 16!) tracks long there’s a lot of music on the new Heaton/Abbott album, this seems to be a purple patch for the two former Beautiful South singers, obviously, they bounce off each other within the songs and it must spill into the songwriting process but does it need to be such a long album?
It has all the hallmarks of his collaboration with Abbott, the swaggering faster songs, the shuffling midtempo songs and the wistful slower tunes. Ditties like ‘The Only Exercise I Get Is You’ and ‘So Happy’ have that trademark northern wit while country gets to influence the music on ‘You & Me (Were Meant To Be Together)’ but the general feel of the album is so familiar that you keep thinking you’ve heard these songs before and that may be a flaw in Heaton (and songwriting partner Johnny Lexus’) process that there are no real surprises which is pretty much the reason the Beautiful South split up so it's odd that there’s similar patterns here.
Even though it's unsurprising, it is still pretty high-quality pop and both Jacqui and Paul have great, recognisable voices which make songs like ‘A Good Day Is Hard To Find’ with its motownesque rhythms so enjoyable, they feel like old friends.
They do try to channel other styles like reggae on ‘New York Ivy’ or some house style beats on ‘House Party 2’ but it always sounds familiar as soon as the duelling vocals come in, the only real eye-opener of a song is the experimental near title track ‘MCR Calling’ with it's treated spoken word vocals from a variety of different guest vocalists and grey sky, doom-laden backing track it feels like it comes from a different album entirely and shows that there is still new ground to be covered.
Solid, like the city itself and just as familiar with equal amounts of cheek and smarts ‘Manchester Calling’ is a good album, not a great album, needing pruning and a bit more punch before it comes up to being as its northern namesake.
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