The Cooper Temple Clause - Make This Your Own (Sequel)
2/5
By: Gareth Roberts
Once one of the most exciting, raw and unpredictable bands around, the Cooper Temple Clause return, minus a certain bass player, in an attempt to win back our affection and pick up where they left off all those years ago (well, it seems like ages at least).
Unfortunately, fans of the 'old' CTC may be in for quite a shock, as not only have they lost that dangerous edge which characterised 'See This Through And Leave', but they have lost it in dramatic fashion, and have become, wait for it... something of an MOR, soft rock band.
And its not only their music that's all gone a bit... chart friendly. Ben Gautrey's voice, at one time one of the most distinctive nasally snarls around, has now morphed into a sort of teenager-in-a-boy-band genteel whisper, and is now joined on vocal duties by two other members of the band. It could almost be Hanson.
Passing these initial setbacks aside, the music itself may not be what we were expecting, but is it actually any good? Well, yes and no. 'Damage', and 'Waiting Game' are as good a pop-rock chart friendly fodder as you're likely to hear, whilst 'Take Comfort' displays a new side to the band, as they offer us a strange sort of country ditty. 'Head' is a wonderfully atmospheric effort that makes you remember why you liked this band so much in the first place, but again, your affection for it is tinged with doubt, like a lover who's been away for a long time, there is something not quite right about them.
There are further odd glimpses of the old fire in their bellies, 'All I See is You' and 'Homo Sapiens' possess Metallica-sized riffs indicative of the CTC of the good old days. But again, and I can't stress this enough, its tinged, just like Lostprophets, they've bowed to the mainstream and are now writing songs fit for that purpose (and are, to be fair, quite good at it, despite the fact that to take them seriously you've surely got to be, at best, 14 years old).
So it's with a tear in the eye that we say goodbye to the Cooper Temple Clause, waving them off as they embark on a whole new world, a world which may offer far more material riches and is undeniably bigger in every sense of the word, but one that is disappointingly not better.
Artists in this article: The Cooper Temple Clause
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