Obrigado - The Same Thing that Makes You Live

  by Kelly Smith

published: 6 / 12 / 2008

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Review

The press release tells me “we all know what these songs sound like”. Well, job done then, this is going to end up being a seriously easy review. To be on the safe side though, I decided to listen to it just in case I didn’t know what it sounded like. Apparently, these songs sound like “recreational drug abuse” “beer and pizza” and “wasted days”. They don’t sound anything like any of these things, not least of all because I’m not sure what pizza sounds like. After what I’d class as a more than moderate build up I was left completely cold by a song which is supposed to be the “embodiment of contemporary British music”. 'The Same Thing That Makes You Live' is a rainy day, and it doesn’t make me feel like getting out of bed. They kind of sound like the Feeling would if you told them Santa wasn’t real and they were adopted... It’s passable pop music, but it’s just not emotive. It’s not just vocalist Ryan Shaw’s faul. The tune is just the shade above melancholy. It’s nothing I haven’t heard before, in much better variations. This kind of low key almost indie shouldn’t be able to get away with just being. They should have to work harder to grab someone’s attention and compel people to listen. It’s not going to get anyone excited or riled up, with its monotonous drone about something killing me, and it’s slow pace isn’t setting my world on fire. In all fairness, I don’t think I’d have said so many derisory things about this if Obrigado hadn’t been built up to be the music I’d been waiting for. I don’t hate it, of course, but I wouldn’t choose it, and I don’t think I’d listen to it again.

Track Listing:-

1 The Same Thing that Makes You Live
2 The Mental Institute