Painting It Red: Limited Edition - Beautiful South

...Buy this album! That's it, that's all I have to say. Oh, more needed? Okay then. Normally, when writing about an album, and especially when writing about a Beautiful South album, I would go through the CD on a track by track basis, describing the ups and downs of each track as it comes on the album. However, with 20 tracks an opinion of the 2CD version of the Beautiful South's latest album "Painting It Red" written in such a way would take far too long to read and you'd drop off to sleep before I got anywhere near the end. So instead what I'm going to do is give a general feel for the album and end with some comments made by ...  Read the complete review

The Beautiful South have to be the most reliable group in music today; Painting it Red was released 2 years to the day since Quench and 4 years to the day since Blue is the Colour. This time however, they have truely excelled themselves, not only in producing a 20 track double album, but also in producing their best work to date. Everything about this album is brilliant; not least the packaging which is completely different to their usual artwork, and is really unusual. It is also very impressive the way the group are still able to experiment with new sounds and still sound fresh after 11 years and 7 studio albums. I would really reccomend buying it now to get the ...  Read the complete review

The Beautiful South have been around for many years now, having released their first album in 1989. Fronted by the extremely talented singer/songwriter/producer, Paul Heaton, formerly of The Housemartins, the band have very little chart success for their singles, but their albums are always great sellers. Painting It Red is no exception. Out of all their eight albums, this one has the slickest finish and the most professional looking presentation. It looks extremely classy. The CD arrives in the usual case, but with a box over the top, which has ten squares cut out, to fit over the ‘paint palette’ effect on the CD cover. There is also a beautifully ...  Read the complete review

I heard 'Closer then Most' and wondered what TBS were going to do, a good song, but perhaps lacking polish of the singles from Quench, could they really pull off another classic album? Then I heard that it was going to be a double album, this is nornally a warning sign of self indulgence, where every studio doddle is casually tossed down to tape. Well I'm listening to Paint It Red now, the 20 track edition and it is quite simply one of the most stunning albums I have heard, perhaps I'm getting old and I'm getting soft but this is simply mind blowing music. Many tracks feature a back to basics approach, but believe me every ...  Read the complete review

After a well deserved break the Beautiful South have delivered another solid album, packed with a great collection of new material. This album may prove particularly attractive to newcomers as some of the tracks appear more experimental than before- although that said, every track is accomplished and well polished. Out of all the tracks, I thought the most enjoyably diverse/different was 'Half Hearted Get is Second Best', as this represents a timbre I haven't heard from the Beautiful South before- harsh filtering and a powerful vocal. They have a bash at many different styles over the album,- all of which carried off to great effect whilst retaining the ...  Read the complete review