Thirteen Senses: 'Contact'

Largess in music is not an easy way to find fans or friends. Recent perpetrators like Electric Soft Parade, Embrace, Keane and Coldplay have earned themselves either plaudits or derision depending on degrees of subtlety and their capacity to manage the scope of the sounds with which they are playing. Thirteen Senses sound like all of these bands by turns and it is to their credit that they not only sound original, but also highly likable. Cosmic themes are abound, as for Keane, with lyrics like "all the signs are there I do not exist, under the stars and comets".

Also at play is a Chris Martin-esque falsetto and the Electric Soft Parade’s grandiose piano/drum marches, heard on opening title-track 'Contact'. Shimmering Coldplay guitars and soaring choruses sound extremely well managed, and are set alongside some beautiful lyrical moments ("if only there were time to say it all"). Big indie pop never really went away, but it has suffered at the hands of charlatans who could see the inverted linear relationship between beauty and money. Here Thirteen Senses are enacting something of a revival.

Released 2nd April 2007 by Vertigo.

Written by Huw Green.