Do you think you can ever have too much of a good thing? Well it seems that Sherwood are prepared to test that out as “A different light” isn’t very different from their previous releases at all and one has to ask where their sense of progression has been hiding in the past three years. Having released their self titled EP in 2004 to fairly critical acclaim many predicted Sherwood to have a bright future ahead of them and the ensuing bidding war for their debut album was evidence of this. While “Sing, but keep going” was a solid album it didn’t seem to offer anything radically different from their first release and it ended up slipping under the radar of many listeners. It certainly didn’t slip the attention of the newly founded Myspace Records though as they took the band under their inexperienced wings and suddenly Sherwood were a buzz band again. While their downloadable Summer EP was another solid effort by the band people had started questioning their development and unfortunately those questions will only increase with this release.
“A different light” isn’t a bad album at all; however with the inclusion of several tracks from The Summer EP, and the band’s lack of evolution, you do feel like you’ve heard it all before. Opening the album is “Song in my head” and it contains all the hallmarks of a classic Sherwood song, it’s a steady opening, which builds and twinkles before unleashing a catchy chorus and then repeating itself slowly until we reach the end. The electronic drum beat and synth intro to “The best of me” promises something slightly different but again seems to revert to the same style of song with a similar chorus. This can be said for so many of these tracks that it’s barely worth mentioning them in a different light at all and ultimately that’s the problem with Sherwood – the lack of diversity. Don’t get me wrong though; this album makes for very pleasant listening, but it just seems that Sherwood have become an increasingly disposable band now. I enjoy listening to them but once the tracks have ended I don’t find myself hitting the repeat button any more, which is in stark contrast to their debut EP and the track “The summer sends its love”.
Sherwood write cute summer pop songs that are catchy and inoffensive, and that formula has been evenly spread across all four of their releases. As the old saying goes “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” and you could easily apply this to Sherwood. In four releases and thirty seven (I think) songs I honestly can’t pin point a bad song, but at the same time I would struggle to find a whole album’s worth of truly great tracks there too. For Sherwood to truly impress people they need to break the mould on their next release but for now they seem content to play the same songs to the same crowd.
Tom