Under A Sun
Sunday Times Review - 15/7/01
The trick of Witness is to sound enough like REM to win
over fans of the
Athens band, without sounding so much like them that they come across as
second-rate copyists. And, while their debut album hinted at the cultish
early REM sound, o Under A Sun, the Wigan-bred/Bristol-based five-piece
raise their game sufficiently to bring back memories of Up [On My Boat], New
Adventures in HI-Fi [Till The Morning] and even Green [on the astonishing
opening track 'Here's One For You']. Elsewhere, Witness veer into territory
marked out by both earlier generations of jangly guitar bands - on the
Byrdsian 'My Time Alone' - and later ones, with 'You Are All ...' sounding
the equal of anything on Mathew Sweet's masterpiece, Girlfriend.
With Gerard Starkie's voice stamping a unique identity on top of these
influences, Witness have created one of the great rock albums of the year