Quench

(5381662)

Those refugees from the Housemartins who did not become Fatboy Slim became the Beautiful South, a band whose obstinate Englishness earned them enormous popularity in the U.K. and a decade's worth of total obscurity in the U.S. The Hull-based band's 1999 release does little to change any of that, even though a certain Norman Cook (a.k.a. Fatboy Slim) slipped into the studio to help give it a modern gloss. No matter, the spotlight is still on Paul Heaton, Jacqueline Abbot, and company as they croon their way through clever tales of bittersweet excess. From "Perfect 10"'s meditation on big body parts to the more poignant "Your Father and I," Beautiful South continue to follow their own idiosyncratic path, and fans wouldn't have it any other way. --Bill Forman