After the dullard, meat'n'potatoes drone that was the predictably chart-busting "Madame Helga", your reviewer was full expecting to mete out a further forty lashes and - if he's still standing - give Kelly Jones a good walloping behind the bikeshed, but no, fair's fair and all that: "Maybe Tomorrow"'s really not bad at all.
Yes, yes, of course it's retro and yes, it does rip off The Stones, but it rips off the gentler, funkier Stones of "Waiting On A Friend" rather than the Stones of "Brown Sugar" and - sorry an' all - but this is OK: breezy, soulful, filled out by sassy girl backing singers and the kind of lead vocal Rod Stewart would have smirked happily about in 1971. Damn it, it's actually not too far away from the Fender Rhodes-assisted stuff Ride leaned into circa-"Carnival Of Light."
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You needn't rush for the skip button, either, as the two additional tracks comprising CD1 are passable as well. "Have Wheels Will Travel" is probably the superior, with a bright horn section pumping up the lazy reggae lope of a track that moves forward to rip off The Stones of, ooh, 1976 to create what is basically a less schmaltzy version of "Fool To Cry."
Hmmm....'Stereophonics in half-decent single review shocker'? Nope, wouldn't have entertained that one meself twenty-four hours back, either. Just goes to show, doesn't it?
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