"You'll have these things where people will sing, ÔEverything is all right,' ÔEverything is going to be okay,' and I despise that," says singer/guitarist Alun Woodward. "You have to work at happiness -- it doesn't just fall on your lap."
For the Delgados' new album, Universal Audio, they dial back the orchestral effects. Woodward complains that listening back to Hate, he couldn't find his guitar parts, and so the group "wanted to sort of take the things we learned about dynamics and music and the emotion of different voices or instrumentation and apply that to what we can do singing and playing guitar." The result is a more straightforwardly pop-sounding album with a good bit of dynamic heft, and some of the prettiest melodies this side of the Beatles.
