The Lighthouse Family were the perfect band to soundtrack Tony Blair's re-election campaign: bland, reassuring and very, very popular. Success comes with a price, however, and the British duo are routinely slammed by critics for their lightweight, watered-down brand of soul and pious, sermonising lyrics. Whatever Gets You Through The Day, their third album, is being marketed as grittier than previous efforts but most listeners will be hard-pressed to hear much difference. Its centrepiece is a gospel-style amalgamation of Nina Simone's (I Wish I Knew how it Would Feel to be) Free and U2's One, a bizarre concoction which really has to be heard to be believed. If you can stomach this lapse of taste, then the rest of the album is mildly enjoyable in an unchallenging sort of way, the sort of thing that might go down well on the family stereo after a heavy Christmas dinner. Faint praise, perhaps, but better than none at all.
