Review - Who Killed the Zutons?

What is in the water in Liverpool? A tiny port city that has seen more than its fair share of invasions, from Germans and Jamaicans to Celts and the Irish, Liverpool, to this day, is a smorgasbord of cultures and customs. The Zutons revel in this global gluttony, making their second proper CD a festive mishmash of Them-styled blues rave-ups, quaint country singalongs, instrumental exoticism, '60s R&B and sugary pop tunefulness. Predecessors and fellow Liverpudlians The Coral also draw on the city's love of gritty soul and melancholic pop; but The Zutons bend more towards getting drunk 'til dawn and screaming at the sky, while The Coral are of a gentler persuasion, more likely to be found singing 'round the fireplace than going stark raving potty. Pottiness abounds in such Zutons songs as "Havana Gang Brawl" and "Moons and Horror Shows." Surely, they're the sound of future past.