Since his first records, which he made with techno producer Adamski in the late 1980s, Seal has been at a lonely height when it comes to combining soulful singing and accessible dance-pop. System, his fifth album, hardly offers any surprises: all eleven tracks sound like potential singles. This time Stuart Price has been appointed as producer, who produced, among other things, the latest Madonna
… record (Confessions On The Dancefloor). Perhaps because of his contribution the uptempo material dominates this time and sensitive ballads like Kiss From A Rose and Crazy are missing. Although the techno sounds predominate as always, tracks like Dumb, Just Like Before and Rolling show that the basis of the songs lies with the acoustic guitar this time. The title track, with an intro that seems to have been plucked from Radiohead's Kid A, lets Seal hear bitterly in a full-blown indictment of 'the system' personified by his greedy ex-manager. (MS)more