Flatline
Mutya Keisha Siobhan
3:52 min • Polydor Records • September 01, 2013
Nick Smith reviews
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I’ve waited for almost an eternity to hear new material from Version 1.0 of a certain girl band. Over the past year, MKS has teased with interviews, live performances and a stunning redux of Kendrick Lamar’s ‘Swimming Pools’.
Opening with a tinkly shimmer that could echo ‘Hong Kong Garden’ and the shrewd and knowing lyric “Don’t say it, no, please wait ’til we’re sober”, Siobhan Donaghy sets the tone for the new single ‘Flatline’ as a heartbreaking, ethereal encounter.
Keisha Buchanan then lends the track her pepper and sass, pre-cursing the chorus where the soaring and bittersweet harmonies that I have missed for well over a decade.
The lyric “Stay gone, darling, I can’t hang on, I can feel a flatline, there oughta be a wave” is a touching, yet brutal adieu to a love that no longer cuts it.
Mutya Buena’s silky smooth delivery in the second verse adds a mature, downbeat R&B feel to the track and Donaghy steals the show again with a sensational middle-eight. It’s not only wonderful that the original line-up is back, but that their adroit songwriting has not waned and is more mature, crisp and enigmatic. Combining this with the sonic architecture of Dev Hynes is like adding kerosene to a bonfire.
The track’s denouement is a gorgeous dreamscape and as the mescaline wears off I am left wanting so much more.
These soulful, left-field-pop minstrels are back with a vengeance and their epic and evocative harmonies could not sound sweeter.
