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8 Aug 2013

Rated: Mutya Keisha Siobhan do Scala; are still very good.

Yes, another MKS post. Yes, this blogger is obsessed. Yes, I wish I was batting for Keisha Buchanan's team because she's banging. Yes, the original Sugababe's trio performed a full live show for the first time in over a decade and yes, they were very bloody good.

I wasn't there, so my "very bloody good" is based solely on Youtube clips, the witness accounts of others across the internet and through extreme personal bias. Mutya Keisha Siobhan kicked things off with their debut single 'Overload', a song that's still too cool for its own good. They continued rolling their fans down the grand hill of nostalgia with should have been a mega hit 'Run For Cover' and an incredible performance of 'Stronger'. You can't even hear Siobhan's rendition of the Heidi Range vocal properly because the crowd morph into a pack of wild bitches on heat. 

Enough of the oldies, we want to hear some new music. One of the standouts from the set is 'I'm Alright', a Sia Furler co-pen with the group. It's a mid-tempo piece of balladry with a catchy as hell chorus and lots of lovely MKS harmonising. Keisha's vocals are strong, Siobhan's packed with emotion, but it's Mutya's middle section that stands out. 'No Regrets' is another new track, similarly to 'I'm Alright', it's mid-tempo and about love. Keisha opens it with a stunningly performed verse and Mutya kills the second verse with her smooth soulful rasp. Another new, killer track is 'Lay Down In Swimming Pools', a spin on a Kendrick Lamar song. It oozes cool more so than any of the other new tracks, perhaps more than any of the Sugababe's back catalogue. 

They close the show with new single 'Flatline'. This is my song of the moment, that's no secret. It's creeping up to the higher reaches of my top songs of 2013 draft right now. The performance is solid; amazing vocals, blends, energy thumping through the crowd (if I'd been there I'd probably have stomped a trench into the floor).

Having Mutya Keisha & Siobhan back together is more significant than a lot of people realise. It's not just three women singing some songs and selling some records, it's much more than that. All three of them are skilled songwriters and two in particular (M & K) are responsible for some of the UK's most successful and most critically acclaimed pop songs, making them important contributors to British pop as a whole. If the Scala gig in London serves as a taste of what to expect from the quality of their second album together, we're about to be presented with a very exciting and important moment in UK pop music.



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