ANOTHER WORLD

Southern Empire is back after a five-year hiatus and gives us "Another World". To me their music has changed paths and is more light and fluffy than previous releases. Not that there's anything wrong with that, and some may prefer it, but I enjoy the dark and crunchy bits more. And there is not much of that on this release. The musicians are excellent, the new singer does well and there is a lot of layered vocals if that's your gig. Yet none of the music grabs me or puts a smile on my face. There are no moments that make me say, "hell yeah did you hear that?" and press rewind to hear it again. I do like the sax break (at 6:15) in "Face the Dawn", and "Butterfly" is a very catchy pop tune.