It’s an irony of the music business that the best and most talented musicians go largely unnoticed while they are at their creative peak, and then reach commercial success right about the time they start producing bland and uninteresting music.

Something for Kate hit their peak about seven years ago with their exemplary album Beautiful Sharks. Back in 1999 I was blown away by the band’s sound and energy during a Powderfinger support gig and was hooked. Since those heady days, it’s been an enjoyable ride, with a couple more good albums, Echolalia, and The Official Fiction, both of which were good solid efforts. This year’s release, Desert Lights, comes three years after their last album.

Lo and behold, during my daily juice and cereal one morning last week, I see the band performing their latest single, Cigarettes & Suitcases on breakfast show Sunrise. They were doing a pretty good job of it, and consequently having glowing praises heaped upon them by Koshie and Mel. At this point, I begin to question myself: Do I really like the same band as Koshie? Did I fall out of bed last night and hurt my head? Have Something for Kate been accepted into Australia’s ample bosom of mediocrity at last? The answers to these questions are all, unfortunately, yes. Furthermore, it appears as though Something for Kate intend on following their brethren Alex Lloyd and Powderfinger down the path of radio rock blandness, and thence I assume, into oblivion.

With this release, Something for Kate are attempting to answer the question on everybody’s lips: what happens when you try to come out with the same album four times in a row? And of course, the answer to the question is pretty obvious – you might hit the jackpot a couple of times, but eventually everything will start to sound the same, and you will bore yourself to death.

Now, this is not a bad album. In fact, it masterfully straddles the fence between being bad and good for an entire 43 minutes, which is quite frustrating in its own special way. Apart from being an exercise in traversing the middle ground, the main beef I have with this album is its length. The ten tracks of which it comprises are not outstanding enough to warrant such a short track list. Perhaps if you’re aiming for a short and economical album with extremely high standards it would work, but judging by the quality of the songs, this is not the case. By the time Desert Lights wraps up, I find myself wondering, “Is that it?”, resulting in an unsatisfying listening experience.

Desert Lights is Something for Kate in rock mode, but unfortunately it’s not the idiosyncratic, chaotic rock like Electricity, more of a radio friendly “let’s try and appeal to everyone” sound. Throughout the album, I can’t shake the feeling that it all seems a little forced, formulaic, and that inspiration wasn’t exactly forthcoming during the songwriting process.

There are some nice moments here, although most of them are almost polished beyond recognition by new US producer Brad Wood. Overall, the album is really quite pleasing (albeit in a generic way), but it somehow lacks the finer moments which make this band great. There are many fine examples of Paul Dempsey’s formidable songwriting skill, yet something here rings hollow, as though the songs were written with an acute awareness that somebody would be listening. Washed out to Sea features some very uncharacteristic gospel piano flourishes, however on the whole, the album holds no surprises whatsoever, and indeed nothing particularly worthy of attention.

Interestingly, it was during the recording of Desert Lights that vocalist and songwriter Dempsey finally married bassist Stephanie Ashworth, which further supports my theory that good songwriters should never, ever settle down.
- Afe Stein
Afe's Rating: 5.4