Coda.fm

You Can Do Anything

by The Zutons

• Buy it at Amazon.com

The royalties must have seemed tempting at the time--hell, they still must--but it’s got to feel galling to have written and recorded one of the genuinely great modern British soul songs, only to have it stolen from you and paraded in new bling from every speaker and screen. Anyone still under the impression that Mark Ronson and Amy Winehouse cooked up the all-conquering "Valerie" themselves would be well advised to delve back into The Zutons’ small but stocky back catalogue for further gems and trinkets. Of course, it’s not all perfect--the fact that The Zutons are so very overcooked is both their appeal and their Achilles heel. There is generally too much in the way of cod-poetic sub-Beautiful South storytelling and bad jokes, too much throttled yelping, far too much saxophone and too little subtlety. But when the surplus is skimmed aside, what's left can form an indie-soul revue to knock your novelty socks off. Examples on You Can Do Anything include the hammering vocal back-and-forth of "Harder And Harder", the colourful, anthemic "Always Right Behind You" bouncing off Slade’s bell-bottoms and the riff-heavy Mott The Hoople-esque "Family Of Leeches." They’re still essentially The Coral in lounge suits, Gomez without the Americana infatuation, but they’ll be having the last laugh: on this evidence, they're a good few years away from the cruise ship circuit. -- James Berry