Miaow - Beautiful South

As a long time fan of the Beautiful South, this is easily my favourite of their albums. Heaton’s lyrics reach their peak here, and the substitution of the divinely voiced Jacqui Abbot in for the somewhat screechy Briana Corrigan improves the vocals on all of the female voiced songs. Track by track review: 1. Hold On To What? – For the first time, a South album starts with one of the best tracks as the opener. Much better than ‘Song For Whoever’, ‘Red Eyes’, or ‘Tonight I Fancy Myself’, this is catchy from the first listen, and draws you into the album straight away. 2. Good As Gold (Stupid ...  Read the complete review

Arguably the best Beautiful South album, this CD has such a variety of musical styles from the one group, its quite incredible. Featuring the vocals of Paul Heaton on each track, this album introduces the vocal talent of Jaqueline Abbott, along with the familiar line up of Dave Hemmingway, David Rotheray, Sean Welch and David Stead. Produced by Jon Kelly, Miaow was released during a quiet "lull" in success for this popular group, and was often overlooked by members of the public and music critics alike. However, the tracks on this album skip by, the order of which are: 1. Hold On To What? 2. Good As Gold 3. Especially for You 4. ...  Read the complete review

A darker and more personal album this, but still with the same quality songwriting, with the appearence of Jacqui Abbot the band take an interesting and skightly different stance. If the loss of Brianna Corrigan had on effect on the South they did not show it, in fact they carried on as if nothing had changed. Qgain this album contains the usual array of classic trakcs, I was a little cautious when I purchased this album, but I feel it is a good album in its own right, you do appreciate it more when you hear other Beautiful South stuff and you can put it into context. the one things the album does have as mentioned is a haunting personal ...  Read the complete review

for a musical feast from hulls premier band look no further then this finley crafted musical masterpiece.This is one of the souths finest albums,Heatons tones send a chill down the spine on such songs as hold on ,prettiest eyes and many more,for anybody wanting to sample the souths delights look no further than miaow.....it also marks the the apperance of jaqui abott the former check out girl drafted in by paul heaton to replace the excellent brianna corrigan,she duets with heaton on classic tracks such as worthless lie, hold on,and she comes in to her own on such tracks as everybodys talking and not forgetting the vocal excellence of dave hemmingway this all come ...  Read the complete review

Of all their albums, I think this one is best, as it's the most varied and inventive of a good bunch. With one possible exception (namely that country and western number that irritatingly was the only song of the album made into a video, as far as I know, but which makes my skin crawl when I hear the yowling C & W tones) the songs are superb .. maybe even better to dance to than the run of the mill beautifuly southerly numbers. And of course there's no shortage of irony and sarcasm, not to mention black humour, in the lyrics. That one that starts "from the first world war to the Yom Kippure.." is especially evocative and always has me reaching for ...  Read the complete review