The opening track Poison Vine featuring the soul vocals of the legendary PP Arnold, who famously worked with The Small Faces (amongst many others), echos songs like Getting Better by Shed Seven, Country Girl by Primal Scream and several Ocean Colour Scene songs. All of whom will likely cite The Small Faces as an influence, you can picture the song being performed on Top of The Pops in the late 90s. It acts as a reminder that Cast should always be mentioned alongside their Britpop contemporaries.
Don’t Look Away, knocks everything back down initially with John Power’s Liverpudlian vocal centre stage, before building a grand sonic stage around him through the choruses. Calling Out Your Name continues the big sounds, a fantastic anthem of defiance, you can see “Never let them tell you what is wrong or right” ringing out around the big stadiums, they were touring with Oasis last year.
Say Something New has a lovely eerie almost b-movie feeling to it with hints of Mark Knopfler guitar sounds and reverb on the vocals. Way It’s Gotta Be (Oh Yeah) punches back with a bluesy intro followed by PP Arnold’s return alongside John Power, for a chunky groovy tune.
Devil and The Deep sets aside the big sounds for a journey through the mid west desert, with slide and acoustic guitars as the main backing, the track is bookended with a retuning of the radio effect perhaps acknowledging its a difference to the rest of the LP, before Weight of The World brings the big sounds back.
Teardrops and Birds Heading South both feel like you could be waving torches in the air at a venue during them. Although not sure they’ll replace Walkaway in the setlist slot designed to get your arms around your friends singing in unison to.
Overall the album is a delightful uplifting set of songs and could easily sit along side other Britpop LPs, wearing influences proudly from 1960s and 70s greats like The Beatles, Stones and many more. It will stand to remind everyone how great Cast are, if they weren’t already reminded by being chosen for the Oasis 25 tour, or ever had any doubts of it.