Hurts
Surrender
Columbia
It seems like two of the defining characteristics of the most successful pop of the last half decade are over-blown production (see Calvin Harris and David Guetta) and over-blown emotion (take a bow Adele).
On this third album, the sharp-suited synthpop duo of Theo Hutchcraft and Adam Anderson use both ingredients in varying ratios and with varying degrees of success. Closing track Wish, for example, is a Someone Like You regret-fest powered by memories of associated London places (Camberwell Road, Picadilly underground, Whitchapel). It's neatly done and well-crafted, quality tune-smithery from a production team including regular collaborator Jonas Quant and new arrival Stuart Price who recorded as Les Rhythmes Digitales before turning producer for the likes of Madonna, Pet Shop Boys and The Killers.
At the other end of the scale is party banger Nothing Will Be Bigger Than Us, with its euphoric “oh-oh-oh” vocal fills, its builds, drops and hands-in-the-air crescendos. Why strays into the rather more interesting territory that Jungle have colonised but it's left to Rolling Stone to show what Hurts can do when they set their minds (and their pens) to the task. “In Belarus she was a vespertine/She danced the go-go for the bourgeoisie,” Hutchcraft sings.
There's too little of that here. Still, it's hard to argue with Hurts's numbers: a million albums and three million singles sold. If it ain't broke, why bother fixing it?
Barry Didcock
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