What purpose do Kosheen serve? Polish up Sian Evan’s folky voice and they would sound like Massive Attack: harness the reggae bass to a more urgent beat and they become Leftfield. Nearly twenty years after electronic music opened up infinite possibilities of sound and rhythm, Kosheen are still wandering around in a vague middle-ground, afraid to be either poppy or abrasive.
And Damage is a long album. At over an hour and with a crammed lyric sheet, it slouches through sixteen mid-tempo numbers. A horrible resignation drapes the album, as if the failed relationships condemned in the songs have infected the musicians. Wearisome complaints, bursts of lack-lustre guitar and old fashioned synthesizer squelches are less melancholic than tired, and there is no sense of adventure- for that matter, there is no sense of anything, other than a bored band going through the motions.
Given the available technology- and Kosheen’s roots in drum’n’bass- there is no excuse for such a predictable album. Even the one-hit wonders of disposal dance music can manage a simulacrum of enthusiasm.