Cast
Mother Nature Calls

L.P number two from the Liverpudlian four-piece sees the chaps at something of a career cross-roads. The critically-lauded "All Change" L.P clearly benefited from the Oasis knock-on effect and healthy sales established the band as yet another NME-friendly combo, with every single a high chart entry and with access to the all-important Jools Holland/Chris Evans school of live T.V assured.

However for some lucky punters there may be bigger fish to fry. It's high time somebody laid claim to being the official second-in-command to the Gallagher clan in the Anorak Rock stakes and John Power and his similarly attired colleagues seem as well placed as any to reap the potential rewards and make the leap from T-shirt band to stadium-fillers.

Alas, on first, second and twenty-third hearing, "Mother Nature Calls" represents a massive missed opportunity. Given the global riches seemingly there for the taking it seems astonishing that they have been allowed to release a recording as singularly tepid as this. The recent hit "Free Me" with all it's Who-esque gusto is the best track by several furlongs. The only other possible single appears to be "I'm So Lonely", which itself is a virtual re-write of "Walk Away". Far too many of the remaining nine tracks are lumpen mid-paced chuggers waiting for an inspired guitar twist that invariably never comes. Admittedly the jaunty "She Sun Shines" has a certain stomp-based charm that breaks out of the L.P's rigid formula, but in doing so it still sounds like a generic Brit-pop backing track (hello Echobelly).

Lyrically, Power treads a similar path to brother Noel, peddling homespun philosophies that hint at universal truths whilst forever searching for that killer second line. More often than not the sheer conviction of brother Liam's cocksure delivery tends to more than compensate for any moon/june howlers in the Oasis canon.. Unfortunately John Power is not half as vocally gifted. Subsequently his poetic shortcomings tend to be woefully exposed ("Time that ticks away/time that lasts all day".... "I'm ten feet tall/the world looks oh so small"), reading more like the work of a man in a taxi on the way to the studios than the musings of a nineties' street prophet.

All in all this is disappointing fare, lacking in the ambition that successful second albums feed on. To call it an exercize in treading water would be doing a disservice to "All Change", an altogether more cohesive affair that will long outlast the shallow delights of "Mother Nature Calls". The "Later" slot may be safe in the short-term, but if Cast do not expand their vocabulary (literally and musically) in time for the difficult third album they may find their brand of everyman anthem being as welcome as a reunion tour by The Farm.

Reviewed by Anthony J.Brown.