The Servant
How To Destroy A Relationship

THE REVIEW

The debut of the British band The Servant was a rarity: no success in the U.K., but good feedback in the rest of Europe. They offered a finely crafted pop with electronic influences, the latter paying tribute to the experience of frontman Dan Black with the Italian Planet Funk. The change of direction is evident in the new "How To Destroy A Relationship": out with the electronic touch, Black and the band's music is stripped down to the essentials (the good old friends guitar, bass, and drums) thanks to the contribution of a good producer like Jim Lowe (Stereophonics). However, the move turns out to be wrong: the first two singles, the title track and "(I Should Be Your) Girlfriend", were unsuccessful, so the attempt to make their sound more appealing to the English market doesn't work in their homeland or in our Italy (the record doesn't go beyond position no. 97!). Although not all the work is to be discarded: we find good things especially in "Brains", a nice hint of hard rock (but just a hint, eh!), the interesting "Save Me Now" (with creative drum rhythm on which Black builds a catchy vocal line), and the beautiful melodic opening in the chorus of "Moonbeams". Musically, the songwriting is closer to models declared by the singer himself, such as The Smiths, or to purely English sounds that do not perfectly match the hallucinated lyrics of the good Dan (who has almost entirely abandoned his psychiatric clinic moves on stage - see the video of "Orchestra" from the first LP). It is still a band that, with the next works, should try to return to offering less prefabricated and more instinctive sounds than those of this record, which nevertheless remains a moderately pleasant pastime. But nothing more.