For passive club-goers and Amy Winehouse fans, The Zutons will ring a bell of indifferent recognition. We are not kind to our nostalgic influences and though the rock band has been around since the turn of the century, they may not leave much more of a cultural mark than their Valerie cover. But latest single Creeping on the Dancefloor, riding the coattails of evacuating and murder on the sticky surfaces where people throw themselves around, is a neat enough third place. Anyway. Here we are judging the electronic fuzz and faded wave of neon noir styling for a band whose lyrical power comes from wet kisses and a Franke Goes to Hollywood-type beat.
Pretty dull stuff then, considering the lack of build or mark of an end to their titular continuations. Favoured pants and out for the partying lifestyle, the love lost to the dancefloor, there is a creepy, sinister message looming over all this. Those regrets of inaction in the face of floods of music just hit a little strange, and Creeping on the Dancefloor struggles to move its plodding instrumentals and forgotten about guitar to a level worthy of its tight production. This may be a sweet package and a consistent enough vocal range for fans of The Zutons, but for those looking in on the band for the first time in years, it may be a shocker to see they are doing nothing out of the ordinary. Hoping for anything else would be absurd – instead, the band is peddling those days of staying out all night.
Their original listeners have grown out of it and The Zutons now approach the next generation. Some of us do not want a Toploader-sounding piece of dancefloor fatigue. Aside from a bit of out-of-place guitar work, there is little else to this one. Collected relics of some forgotten indie rock from years before – and this is the issue for so many of those formerly loved artists who failed to move their sound on. The Zutons bring out what they know worked a decade or two ago and expect the same results. Slight changes, a retrofitted electric pace and a wail from frontman David Alan McCabe is all that can be changed here. What it lacks in change it makes up for in its complete, fundamental disinterest in being poor.
Creeping on the Dancefloor has an alarming title, the flatlining pace of old hands working away in a comfortable bubble and lyrics of a completely disinterested pace. Rejected snogs while the band begins to play feels incredibly old hat and “creeping” feels an apt description of its intent. There is this warped projection of how clubs now operate, this indecency of prowlers on the floor feels like a knock at those who do it, at times. Not fully committed to alienating them but also a sense of disgust. Either The Zutons are lashing out at their core audience of cans of Stella dancefloor knobs or are handing them the disgusting tools to carry forth their lurch on what they perceive as nothing more than something to bother. There is little else to the track, though hopes for the album remain lukewarm.
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