Call me cynical but when an artists CD comes with the opportunities to buy shares in “this project”, you can’t help but wonder if it’s all a ploy to release incredibly radio friendly music designed to shift copies or just a legitimate way of raising money to release records free from the shackles of a record company.
Even after listening to the song a few times, it’s quite difficult to tell. It’s got a soul influenced sound tinged by the style of the likes of Aretha Franklin with funky guitars and bass. The lyrics are very much generic with cries of ‘I won’t be held down anymore” and “It’s going to be my time to shine” and the song is very much oversung, Warwick stretches her voice too far at points and it shows up her limitations. In a very competitive genre of music this can be enough to turn people off the artist in question whether the rest of their material is up to scratch or not.
If anything, the song suffers from being far too busy at points, despite its verse-chorus-verse-chorus style structure. The bass, drums, guitar, brass and voice often feel like they are competing with each other for your attention and it results in No More being quite a tiring listen.
Whatever side of the debate you fall in, Laura Warwick is unlikely to be a great investment for the future.