Keith – Mona Lisa’s Child (Lucky Number)
3/5
By: Thomas Hannan
I've spent about five consecutive listens of 'Mona Lisa's Child' going through my mental list of early to mid nineties guitar bands in the hope that I can finally pin down the one it is who Keith sound like most. Sure, that vocal drawl is reminiscent of (though more successful than) Ian Brown's consistently futile attempts at hitting a note, that unremitting high hat has a d-i-s-c-o about it that Bez would dance his E-d up norks off to and there's even a slight nod in the mystical imagery and earnestly singing about what is probably nothing that for some reason prompts thoughts of Mansun. But on the sixth-or-so listen, it hits.
Golly does this sound like The Charlatans. I mean - whoah, dude - that rave like piano, the way those vocals just hang in the air, the butch but gracious swagger to it... it's better than the Charlies have been in yonks. This, however, is faint praise - that other lot have been really rather poor for what seems like aeons. And whilst Keith might not be the most trailblazing of young groups, and have a name that's frankly appalling, they have in 'Mona Lisa's Child' found the strong melody that Burgess and his boys have been fumbling after for years.
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