Language. Sex. Violence. Other?

The song "Deadhead" was previously released as a demo version under a different track name on the "Madame Helga" CD single as "Royal Flush". This is the second time to date the band have released a full finished version of a demo track from a CD single of a previous album campaign, in which "Nice to Be Out" from "Pick a Part That's New" was released two years later in 2001 on Just Enough Education to Perform.

The album started out while the band were touring for their previous album You Gotta Go There To Come Back. In March 2004, after Stereophonics had stopped touring, they went into the studio for eight days to develop new and further develop the ideas lead singer and guitarist Kelly Jones had come up with. The demo for "Dakota", which was originally named "Vermillion", was recorded in the one day Kelly and Jim Lowe were at The Stone Room in Shepherd's Bush. The next day the band went to their usual studio Sahara Sound in Fulham where Jones started working on "Superman" and managed to record a take of it. The band decided after recording these two demos that this sound was the direction the album would go in. After eight days in the studio they had fifteen song ideas for the album. Weyler, who had previously been the studio assistant for You Gotta Go There to Come Back, provided assistance for Language. Sex. Violence. Other? but was asked during studio sessions to provide drums for the demos instead of the drum machine they were using. MacKenzie Wilson of AllMusic described the album as punk rock-influenced, similar to their debut album Word Gets Around (1997), Adam Moerder of the same website shared similar sentiments, feeling the album tried to appeal to "today's new wave hipsters" and compared "Lolita" to shoegaze music, "Dakota" to New Order and the basslines from "Superman" and "Deadhead" to the Cure's song "A Forest".

Release

Singles

Four singles were released from the album, the first two were given a CD, DVD and a 7-inch vinyl release while the last two were only given a CD and 7-inch vinyl release. While "Dakota" performed well in the charts, the other three singles did not perform as well and only peaked within the Top 20.

The first single, "Dakota", was released on 28 February 2005. The second single, "Superman", was released on 20 June 2005. The third single, "Devil", was released on 19 September 2005. The fourth single, "Rewind", was released on 21 November 2005. The recording sessions lasted from six-to-eight weeks according to Kelly.

Packing and title

Language. Sex. Violence. Other? received generally mixed reviews. At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 57 based on 30 reviews. MacKenzie Wilson at AllMusic gave the album four stars out of five praising the replacement of Cable with Weyler as the new drummer and that they "could not have nailed it any better." NME, who were critical toward their previous two albums, praised the album with "its sparse artwork and one-word titles."

However, Drowned in Sound rated it three out of ten, writing: "Sure, there are radio-friendly, stadium rock moments aplenty. Yet, the chugging, plodding guitar riffs remain, new drummer Javier Weyler adds little value, and Jones is still straining away like Liam Gallagher having a dump. All this anchors 'Language...' firmly in the now familiar 'Phonics crowd pleasing pub rock territory."

Track listing

Personnel

Stereophonics

Kelly Jones – vocals, guitar, piano
Richard Jones – bass guitar
Javier Weyler – drums

Technical

! width="40"|UK Indie

! width="40"|AUS

! width="40"|BEL (Wal)

! width="40"|IRE

! width="40"|NL

! width="40"|NZ

!scope="row"|"Dakota"

|align="center"|1

|align="center"|22

|align="center"|18

|align="center"|8

|align="center"|74

|align="center"|20

!scope="row"|"Superman"

|align="center"|13

|align="center"|—

|align="center"|19

|align="center"|—

!scope="row"|"Devil"

|align="center"|11

|align="center"|—

!scope="row"|"Rewind"

|align="center"|17

|align="center"|—

{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center;"

|+Album charts (year-end)

!Chart (2005)

!Position

! scope="row"| UK Albums (OCC)

|37

Certifications

References

External links

Language. Sex. Violence. Other? at Stereophonics.com