Wu-Tang Clan
Wu-Tang Forever
Loud Records
Just what do you want me to say, exactly? The most eagerly awaited rap release since the last Wu-Tang album four years ago, the best-kept secret in hip-hop (Wu producer the RZA famously would not let the master tapes leave his side all during recording), the last Clan album before the millenium, is over 2 hours long, fills 2 CDs (or 8 sides of vinyl if you’re a luddite like me) and, like ‘Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)’, promises to change the face of hip-hop AGAIN.
Kicking off with ‘Wu-Revolution’, a spoken word diatribe against the crisis that rap finds itself in set to a heavy dub bassline, it’s obvious that The RZA isn’t taking any easy Wu-by-numbers approach here. Disembodied strings, discordant pianos, devastatingly simple two-note basslines that tear your stomach out, all backing up the nine most wildly talented MCs who ever hatched a plan for complete world domination together.
In keeping with this grand Wu masterplan, the voices we hear most belong to the Clan members who haven’t had chance to shine in solo projects yet; Masta Killa, Inspectah Deck, U-God, and RZA, but that isn’t to say that the others are any less visible- Method Man, Genius, Raekwon and Ghostface Killah go from strength to strength. Unfortunately, loose cannon Ol’ Dirty Bastard appears to have joined occasional member Cappadonna in unimaginative misogynist territory - ‘Dog Shit’ is possibly the most repulsive thing the Wu have ever committed to vinyl, and seems horribly out of sync with the ‘respect your black queen’ sentiments set out in ‘Wu-Revolution’.
But contradiction has always been central in hip-hop, from Public Enemy’s confused politico-religious preaching to the eternal battle between ‘keeping it real’ and ‘entertainment’, and this is no exception. The routes out of the ghetto are paved with Tical, it would appear - take the Clan as role models, but don’t do as they say OR as they do.
There’s little filler here, which is surprising for an album of such great length. New single ‘Triumph’ is a ‘Protect Ya Neck’ for ‘97, except they don’t have to pay for it themselves anymore - ‘Cash Still Rules’, it’s just somebody else’s. Granted, it’s difficult to get your head round something this long, this dense, this BIG, to begin with. But repeated listening is rewarded in kind. The Clan are still in the front. Let your feet stomp.
Prodigy
The Fat of The Land
XL
“So, I’ve decided to take my work back underground, to stop it falling into the wrong hands” began 1994’s seminal Music For The Jilted Generation, and compared to that this is more like their ‘underground, overground, wombling free’ album. However, it does manage to make use of the things that it finds, and churn out a classic here and there. Case in point is the high-adrenaline opening track Smack my Bitch Up, which combines Eastern warbling with fuel-injected 303 squelches. You hardly have time to catch your breath before Breathe swaggers into the saloon, swinging nunchukas around its head. Keith doing his Johnny Rotten and Maxim doing his, well, Maxim. Dirty, fuzzy guitar, and low, wobbling bassline. At this point you certainly begin to feel that things are shaping up rather nicely, thank you very much, and then comes the Diesel Power, which basically sounds far too much like Turtle Power. And unfortunately the music takes a bit of a dive too, making the whole thing a rather unimaginative loping affair. This track does nothing for me.
They try to repent with Funky Shit, complete with Beastie Boys sample, and the picture does brighten a little, but compared to their more inspired stuff this is still dance-by-numbers. Serial Thrilla is up next and here’s where Keith gets a bit much, going on and on about being a hard-as-nail destructive mayhem-inducing headcase etc etc. We have our full share of that on Firestarter. This is probably just a track by some dodgy Prodigy tribute band that accidentally slipped onto the album. After all, can it really be the same band that produced the following Mindfields? When this gets going, it reminds me of Poison off their last album; it has that dark, hallucinogenic edge to it. Which contrasts only too well with the weak and whiny edge of Crispian Mills on the next track, Narayan : “If you believe the Western Sun is falling down on every one”. Yes, thanks for that, Crispian. It probably wouldn’t be a bad track without him, but his voice sounds simply too weak to carry it. Not as successful as the obviously comparable Setting Sun, and unfortunately the longest track on the album.
And then Firestarter, which we all know and love, enters stage left, and with a flurry of beats it comes out punching. They sprinkle some cheesy vocals from Keith on top, and place it in the oven until golden brown. A bit silly, but a lot of fun. The penultimate track Climbatize, is the only purely instrumental track here, and although not bad in a kind of early-Orbital way, is nothing special. Things close down with the L7-cover Fuel My Fire, with Keith doing vocals and backing vocals by Saffron from Republica. It is the straightest punk-track on the album, and there may well be some changing-the-perception-of-what-a-dance-band-can-do about it, but I don’t think it matters if they were to start doing Bob Dylan covers, as long as they’re good. Which this unfortunately isn’t, doing justice to neither L7 nor Prodigy. All in all, there’s little coherency as an album here - it’s more like a collection of singles, and quite a mixed bunch of singles at that : four classics, two mediocres, and four reasons why they invented the skip button on your CD player.
Audacious and exciting, ROC (né Reincarnation Of Christ) have dared to produce an album of polar opposites. They shift from semi-acoustic musing to a techno-industrial battering ram with assured ease. The reason for such a bizarre mix is probably because they are more than competent at both genres.
‘Dada’ and ‘(Dis)count Us In’ herald the beginning of the album with the Underworld / Tricky / Stabbing Westward theme that covers half the tracks. Laden with samples and nasal ramblings, this is at times sweeping trance, soon after indestructible Gabba. They happily manage a compromise between both styles, proving exhilarating without causing incoherence- a common problem avoided.
The album’s other hemisphere is more conventional, yet nonetheless rewarding. ‘Mountain’ and ‘Ocean And England’ are just lovely, the unnamed female singer delivering her lyrics amicably and honestly. The recent single ‘Cheryl’ is a more up-tempo development, but still retains the crystalline beauty you become used to on this album.
The common bond between tracks is mostly lyrical. ROC ‘deal’ with fundamental features of relationships that other groups avoid- marriage, childcare and fidelity- not without humour. Bar room philosophy has never been so bitter than on ‘Cold Chill’ (“Just when you think life can’t get much worse / It turns you over and fucks you up the arse”). Not like the Murphy’s, then...
All said and done, this group are living proof that there are people attempting something daring and different in today’s music scene. There is the occasional boo-boo, but trial and error is far better than The Beatles-by-numbers.
An excellent collaboration between Giant Sand and their first co-conspirator in what they promise to be a series of aural soups, Lisa Germano. It opens with a cheesy-but-affecting cover of Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazelwood’s ‘Sand’, and keeps its feet off the ground from there on in, all the way to the Neil Young cover ‘Round and Round’ at the end, not forgetting all the warm buns in its oven in between. The vocals are pretty much passed back and forth between Giant Sand sandman Howe Gelb, a bit gravelly, all kind-of looking down and singing down, and Germano, who comes up with the two most instantly memorable tracks, ‘If I Think Of Love’ and ‘It’s A Rainbow’.
Titled ‘Slush’ with not the smallest splash of irony, this off-kilter jazzy country-rock, bits slow, bits sad, bits strange album tells of ‘scummy guys and boring girls’. This does not mean that it replaces over-romanticism with coldness. On the contrary, even when it hurts you it keeps you warm, and it never fails to impress. The more I listen to it, the more I like it (and then I listen to it some more).
As the title suggests, this is not a reverential butt-kissing exercise but, instead, a chance to kick about some of the original Can ideas and see how they sound in the nineties. As such, it stands as a document of all that is progressive, from the post-rockisms of Sonic Youth and U.N.K.L.E to the drum and bass rhythm freaks such as A Guy Called Gerald and Hiller / Kaiser / Leda.
It starts with a bizarre remix from Eno which is as enjoyable as it is short, before winding its way past the weird, the wonderful and then the Bruce Gilbert Mix of ‘TV Spot’ which is so far off the planet it’s Janet. It soon becomes clear that the post-rock lot are closer in style to Can, yet the drum and bass/dance faction show just how far Can’s rhythmic repetition has permeated contemporary music. An album with original tracks from all these artists would be fascinating, but the fact that each is linked by similar base material makes the album cohere as a whole and as such the links between genres such as post-rock and drum and bass become clearer.
Putting aside the godawful worthiness of all this pontification, the album just sounds bloody good. Its tracks have enough similarity to make sense, yet there is enough diversity to keep interesting sound freaks going. Oh, and if you want to listen to some actual Can, all the original releases have been reissued.
I can’t help but get the feeling that, after all, Jocasta are not headed for the stars, yet somehow they perhaps ought to be. When you consider this debut against those of the likes of Radiohead, the potential here is pretty apparent. Okay, so their cathartic live energy is diminished on tape but the opening strings/guitar riff of ‘Laughing’ breathes power and demands to be played loud. Now don’t be afraid of the word ‘strings’ - it’s not what it may seem. What we’re talking about here is embellishment not painting over - these songs have been realised to nearly full sonic potential (although a more sensitive mix may have opened out the sound further).
Jocasta at their best are all about cool ideas taken to a challenging conclusion, but sometimes it all becomes a little too operatic, maybe soap operatic. That said, a lot of the songs like ‘Laughing’ and the singles ‘Go’ and ‘Change Me’ work well because they never stay still - there’s changes aplenty, without doing the sad old britpop thing of chucking some weird noises and violins in for the sake of it. Songs like the third single ‘Something To Say’ still work because the reliance on the orchestral arrangements seems to be based around a genuine vision. Kind of like the way Led Zeppelin did stuff like ‘Kashmir’ (but maybe not quite in the same league yet, eh?) in terms of grandeur with some sense of power. Which is not to say that Jocasta are retreading old ground, more taking those kinds of ideas and using them in some different ways.
So, if this sells well enough and the knobs get twiddled properly on the next outing, Jocasta could well grow beyond their contemporaries and prove to be the dark horse of the lot. If they don’t get overlooked in the midst of Placebo/Radiohead/The Verve fever and end up terminally underrated.
Evil Mothers
Spider Sex and Car Wrecks
Alternative Tentacles
Yes, the album we’ve all been waiting for, as those most infamous of mothers, Mother Theresa and, er, The Queen Mother join arms, pick up their instruments and turn to the dark side, spreading twin-axe death and destruction all around. If only. Instead, what we actually have here is a manifestation of that oh so notorious sub-sub genre, industrial goth-rock. I don’t have anything against goths per se, but what really pisses me off most of all is their pathetic attempts to be scarier than the next goth and so on.
Thus, the Evil Mothers “formed in 1990 as a soundtrack to the ritual killings being committed at the time in San Antonio, Texas”. Oh, how constructive. I bet that helped the situation no end, well done lads. They then went on to paint their faces white and live in haunted houses like some dated reincarnation of Winona Ryder out of Beetlejuice.
Despite namedropping Ministry and Killing Joke, the Mothers are more Marilyn Manson than Al Jourgenson and ultimately, quite frankly even Stabbing Westward are scarier than this. Tracks like ‘I Like Fur’ aren’t too bad, but only because they echo Killing Joke’s fizzling industrial pop of old and samples are used heavy-handedly, provoking a series of sub-Ministry attempts at mood music. However, the superficiality of this pastiche contrasts unflatteringly with Ministry’s effortless menace (check out ‘Scarecrow’ off ‘Psalm 69’ for a genuine shit-inducing blast). Ultimately then, this album will probably appeal only to those who like this sort of stuff anyway. But can you imagine the damage to even the most hardened goth’s self-esteem that buying an album by a band called the Evil Mothers could cause? Now THERE’s a scary thought.
Radiohead
OK Computer
Parlophone
Just another last great rock album. This is the sound of rock imploding, of rock having moved so far away from its essence it finally caves in on itself. The ‘classic’ rock album so heavily versed in ‘the serious’ that it disintegrates on contact with its triviality. There is nothing to this album. Such a lot of nothing.
Don’t get me wrong though, this is a great work. Radiohead have transcended the ‘safe’ angst, bleeding-heart rock of ‘The Bends’, but now find themselves in a very strange limbo. Musically they are far more experimantal than ever, the structures of the songs are loose and freewheeling with Thom’s centreless voice mingling with choral refrains and Jonny’s melodic guitar. Lyrics drift in and out of context in a mixture of empty imagery and familiar motifs.
The first track, ‘Airbag’, would have been happier on ‘The Bends’ and is a decent enough track but does not prepare you for what will follow. ‘Paranoid Android’ is similarly misleading in a way, as it seems more like an exercise in complicated songwriting than the drifting mood of the rest of the album. However, it is from ‘Subterranean Homesick Alien’ until ‘Lucky’ where this album just takes a chunk out of your life.
It is full of instruments and different techniques and ideas, yet still seems empty, there is no obvious movement, no defined end in mind and there is nothing to grab hold of. You drift in and out of these songs, grabbing at the most solid parts as they pass you by; the melody from ‘Karma Police’, the noisy guitar from ‘Electioneering’ and the odd lyric here and there. More and more, though, you just end up feeling very, very alone.
As the end of the album approaches we get ‘Lucky’, which acts as a kind of redemption. A hint of some sort of hope, some humanity in the continuous flux of modern life. A recognizable riff and an uplifting mood reminding us of why we used to like Radiohead, when they seemed soft and cuddly, when they didn’t fuck with our heads quite so much.
If lyrically this is a exploration of the future and humanity in that future, then musically it is very much an expression of rock music in the future. Rock music will never die. It will always keep repeating itself, exploring the finite sounds with infinite combinations, turning in on itself over and over again. In its conventional form, rock will never be progressive and so Radiohead express the disintegration of rock, its empty soul.
Welcome to the future. It’s much like the past, far too much like the past.
Lionrock
City Delirious
deConstruction
Sometimes, you buy a book, and you buy an album. You listen to the album exclusively whilst you read the book from cover to cover, and the two are forever linked. Well, this is the album, and the book is called “Watchmen” - which, to cut a long story short, is about a city going slowly mad, before having a 400ft octopus dropped on it. Somehow, it seems appropriate.
‘City Delirious’ is Justin Robertson’s second album under the guise of Lionrock, and it’s doing my head in. Musically, he’s mixing Sabres beats and breakbeats with live guitars and off-key basslines, forever looping in on each other - this is often hypnotic, and rarely boring. The problem is, just as things are getting interesting, MC Buzz B starts rapping, in a fashion which can only be described as pom-te-pom-te-pom-te-pom, pom-te-pom-te-pom. In a month of releases which includes the new Wu-Tang album, this simply isn’t good enough, and his monotone cue-card delivery, rather than complimenting the beats, makes everything very very dulllll. As a result, the instrumental ‘Canal Heist’, and equally non-vocal ‘Zip Gun Rumble’, with it’s ‘Krupa’ beat and countryfied tremelo guitars, are probably the standout tracks.
Unless Lionrock release a remix album, there is a solution. Buy a good book to supply the words, play this album in the background, and ignore the lyrics. It shouldn’t be too hard.
Skateboarders are stupid. They hurl themselves around on planks of wood trying to look hard, and usually only succeed in making themselves look ridiculous when they fall off. They are also responsible for a lot of bad music that gets called ‘skatepunk’.
When it’s done properly, it’s very cool - the mighty Suicidal Tendencies, for example, until they went all metallic, and ska-punksters Operation Ivy released one fantastic album before the singer became a buddhist monk and the others formed Rancid. Horny Toad boast two ex-ST members in their line-up, and have a sound that they describe as ‘Ska-Punk-Rasta-Funk’. In reality, it’s not fast or punky enough to warrant being described as ‘Ska-Punk’, the ‘Rasta’ element is little more than an American guy singing in a patronising Jamaican accent, and it’s only ‘Funk’ in the ‘Funk-metal’ kind of way, ie not very.
If further proof were needed of skateboarders’ limited mental capabilities, then look no further than the ‘hidden’ track on this album, which is only ‘hidden’ because it’s NOT WRITTEN ON THE INLAY CARD. Very clever.
File under Offspring.
Faith No More
Album Of The Year
Slash / London
Flashback to ‘92. Nirvana at the peak of their popularity, Rage Against The Machine tearing up ‘The Word’, loud guitars and shouting are where it’s at. Faith No More are on the verge of self-destruction and drop ‘Angel Dust’, taking the MTV-friendly pop melodies of ‘The Real Thing’, dressing them up in fetish gear and pissing all over them. This record is perverse with a capital sick. The live shows get more and more furious, with Mike Patton gradually becoming more unhinged. The cracks were appearing, the question was just who would go first. It was guitarist Jim Martin, in ‘94, the same year that Kurt Cobain died, and took loud guitars and shouting with him.
And so, five years on, we have ‘Album Of The Year’. It isn’t, of course. There are at least two other albums in these pages that could quite easily carry off that accolade already. However, it is a quite stunning return to form from a band who some people had written off after ‘King For A Day...’. New guitarist John Hudson appears to have filled the six-string vacancy admirably, and Patton is on his best form to date; yelping, squalking, groaning his way through, before breaking into his trademark self-harmonies, whilst the rhythm section remain as tight and unpredictable as ever.
From the ballsy opener ‘Collision’, they just don’t let up. ‘Stripsearch’ builds from a synth-and-drum-machine opening to massive slabs of guitar, ‘Naked In Front Of This Computer’ hits like a heavily syncopated sledgehammer, then ‘Helpless’ and ‘Got That Feelin’’ reminds you that this IS the band who released a straight cover of ‘Easy’. Sure, they still sound like FNM always did, but I liked how FNM always sounded, and they’ve not sounded this good for five years. Loud guitars and shouting are back in business.
It’s kind of indicative of ‘Sweet Sixteen’ as a whole that the opening song begins with a barrage of wanky solos and a ‘wandering’ bassline. It’s also fairly suggestive of the band’s attitudes that the album cover features a toilet containing the consequences of what was surely more than just a ‘dodgy’ kebab. As such, it’s almost as if Royal Trux were attacking one’s journalistic sensibilities right from the outset. Those darned pesky kids.
What we have for the most part then is a kind of amalgamation of sounds from rock’s rich and often distinctly dodgy history. Songs start, do something and then decide that perhaps that direction wasn’t so good and choose to do something else altogether. This unpredictability, although somewhat refreshing at first does, I’m afraid, begin to grate after a while. Often, it’s just a case of one solo too far.
Thus, it’s difficult to know how to approach a record like this. Does it represent the ultimate entropy of rock, hurtling towards a postmodern void, imploding into a retro-active melange of noises? Or does it represent a load of drugged up hippies, fuelled by too much ‘doob’ and ‘nose-candy’, diving into their arse record collection for all those crap 70’s metal albums? Singer Jennifer Herrena, a cross between Axl Rose and Kim Gordon at her throatiest seems pretty cool, though, and the production style is fascinating. It’s like you’re at Woodstock or something, standing miles away from the band, straining to hear the sounds carried by the distinctly whiffy air.
Nevertheless, if you ache for catchy choruses and deplore self-indulgent rock pretension, then you’d best avoid ‘Sweet Sixteen’ like a particularly badly soiled lavatory. As for me, well I think I’ll sit on the fence for this one. Not a comfortable place to be, I can assure you, but then neither is listening to this album.
Shudder To Think
50,000 BC
Epic
After four albums on Ian McKaye’s uncompromisingly credible Dischord label (home to McKaye’s bands Minor Threat and Fugazi, and other Washington DC hardcore acts, such as The Make-Up), Shudder To Think have moved to Epic for this new album, and hopefully this move will bring their particularly distinctive melodic punk to a wider audience. Slightly more straightforward than 94’s ‘Pony Express Record’, this is nevertheless a record that the word ‘idiosyncratic’ could have been created for. Craig Wedren’s swooping, twisting vocals continue to provide a beautiful counterpoint to the massive guitars and powerhouse drumming, his delivery somehow making sense of lyrics which, on the page, seem obtuse and somehow closer to pieces of abstract prose than songwords. “Is that a bruise or a kiss?” he enquires sweetly, on the jaw-dropping opener ‘Call Of The Playground’.
Forthcoming single ‘Red House’ is a rerecording of a track from 1991’s ‘Funeral At The Movies’, and it encapsulates Shudder To Think’s strong points perfectly- taking a riff we think we’ve heard a million times before and turning it into something interesting. Nothing is obvious and you are always kept guessing.
So while ‘Beauty Strike’, ‘Kissesmack Of Past Action’ and ‘The Man Who Rolls’ have the hardcore guitars of their earlier work, ‘The Saddest Day Of My Life’ and ‘All Eyes Are Different’ take from Roy Orbison and Grease soundtracks to back the stories of an emotional cripple, who is quite literally “...scared stiff in love...”, and ‘Survival’ sets the words “...beat you black and blue...” to the most gorgeous melody possible. So, if you like your noisy guitars with a difference (it’d be fair to say Placebo owe more to bands like Shudder To Think than to the much touted Goth revival), you could do much, much worse.
Dream City Film Club
Dream City Film Club
Beggars Banquet
Not the cheeriest of affairs, all things considered. Dream City Film Club are named after a sleazy porno cinema, and their music fits this image perfectly. They inhabit a world of cheap booze and smoke-filled bars, a dimly-lit world of shabby artifice where it it rains every day, a world seen through shit-tinted shades where relationships collapse in a bloody mess, a world in which Nick Cave regularly gets his head kicked in for being way too happy. Enough of the clichés, I think you get the idea about the image Dream City Film Club want to portray. They are not Hanson.
Despite being roundly ignored by the press, the Film Club have built themselves a bit of a cross-dressing celebrity fan base. Well, two. TV funnyman Eddie Izzard is a self-confessed supporter, while Brian Molko of overrated rawk combo Placebo can regularly be seen sporting one of DCFC’s ‘Pissboy’ T-shirts. Make of this what you will.
You’ll notice I’m shying away from talking about the music. This is because it’s kind of nondescript, but not in a bad way. You definitely need to be in the right mood to listen to this, it’s dark and downbeat, brooding and, in places, beautiful. Musically, they are not a million miles from the Tindersticks. In fact, musically they are about five metres from the Tindersticks, there’s no escaping that comparison. However, Dream City Film Club aren’t afraid to beef things up a bit once in a while, and it’s when they do that they sound at their best. They could be destined for greater things, if only they’d cheer up a bit. Come on, it might never happen...
Guided By Voices
Mag Earwhig!
Matador
Fourteen-odd years, ten albums, thirtysomething EPs and the Guided By Voices heritage takes another turn on this fourth long player for Matador. Depending whether you believe the ‘official’ line or the internet rumours, either the band moved on or Bob Pollard fired them, but it really matters not. The end result is still pure GBV, albeit with some new angles provided by having Cobra Verde as Uncle Bob’s backing band for over half the record. The same old schizoid style remains (maybe more due to the variety of personnel than it ever was) with the same obtuse or indecipherable lyrics. Most of these tunes could come from any era of GBV, yet are decidedly not the same old song. Which is probably always the way when Bob Pollard is involved - he picks up a few new tricks, slams them in with the rest and gets a slightly new slant on the whole affair. A Guided By Voices ‘best of’ would sound like any of their albums, as there’s rarely any turkey present and everything seems so timeless.
However, ‘Mag Earwhig!’ seems to leave behind a little more of that lingering reminiscence of the Beatles, and some of the Cobra Verde backed tunes really do rock in a clever way. Kind of like what the Foo Fighters might sound like if they weren’t still stuck up the arse of grunge - ‘I Am A Tree’ is the tune that really provokes that feeling, I suppose. The single ‘Bulldog Skin’ is laden with its fair share of Pollard hooks, but stays gritty with that new edge, yet ‘Jane Of The Waking Universe’ could have come straight from ‘Vampyre On Titus’. Some moments of pure indie pop make this another in the line of GBV epics that you really should buy, and hints at Mr Robert Pollard re-attaining the classic heights of ‘Bee Thousand’.
Ben Harper
The Will To Live
Virgin
Not sure what to make of this one. I mean, it’s pretty damn good and all, but I’ve come to want more of Ben Harper. He really excels when he goes for the more experimental style and this album is a little too rock at some times, a little too trad blues at others. I’ve always wanted to hear him further the hip-hop edge he worked into the blues on the best moments of the last two albums. I get the feeling if he really let go and dove into a real musical adventure then he would create something almost blinding.
Don’t get me wrong, this is still the best, most soulful, blues/rock musical journey since ‘Fight For Your Mind’. It also feels very mellow, due in no small part to JP Plunier’s return behind the desk I’m sure, and Harper’s style is quite unique and engaging. I would never not listen to music of this quality, I just want him to push that little bit more...
It’s kind of country and I hate country. It has those strolling drums. It’s all kind of strolling - it lollops along, yeah, that’s a nice word. It lollops along like a horse kicking up dust. It’s got guitars that roll back and forth, occasionally soar, but never get dirty. It’s also kind of mournful, you know, a bit melancholy. No matter what she’s singing about, the lead vocalist soon starts wailing. There’s even a credit for whistling in the sleevenotes. But when it’s sad, it’s sad in that wholesome country way - it never gets fucked-up and dirty. It’s too much like a sand-sandwich.
But hold your horses (not too tightly). It does leave some small residue, black and sticky like oil. The songs do smudge the air with something a little deranged. It’s not just while the songs are playing, but after they stop - something a bit ghostly. And I think this is something to do with the fact that it doesn’t try to push over its borderlines - it communicates in careful measures (in the same manner that a band like Low do), and is all the more intense because of that.
Tindersticks
Curtains
This Way Up
There are two ways you can go when you re-appropriate music from the past. The first way is the ‘Wild wild way.’ This involves straight-faced, almost academic, musically hyper-competent but often sleep-inducingly clean re-workings which ask no questions. The Wild wild way appeals particularly to a young 20s/30s affluent professional audience who ‘know what they like’.
The second, or ‘good’ way, consists of actually re-thinking, re-shaping older forms of music, playing about with the relationship between past and present. It often has a passion and a vitality about it which the Wild wild ones can never aspire to. I might mention Barry Adamson, Red Snapper, Tortoise, or the Tindersticks at this point. The problem is that with ‘Curtains’ Tindersticks seem to want it both ways.
Unsurprisingly, given the band’s previous work, this is a very skillfully done album. One feature which particularly stands out is the string section, which appears to have been infiltrated by North African/Asian agents, who introduce swooping, dizzy phrases at unexpected moments. Likewise, the horns have been possessed by Latin ghosts, who sneak in at the end of ‘Rented Rooms’ and ‘Let’s Pretend’. My only complaint about these elements is that they’re not exploited enough until we’re virtually at the end of the album, where they produce the best track, ‘Bathtime.’
However, skill is rarely enough. The Wild wild way is paved with skill, and in any case, the Tindersticks are skillful within a relatively small range on this album. Their chord collection isn’t going to fill a scrapbook, and the same cowboy rhythm, first heard on ‘Snowy...’ on the first album, is not only used four times here, but as my sister pointed out, “when they’re not playing it, they might as well be”. The only real wake-up call is the dischordant ‘Fast Song’, which sounds like Albert Ayler’s backing band let loose in Can’s studio, only less free (unfortunately). Otherwise, we’re left with a mostly stifling set of arrangements, minus the passion and the tunefulness of the previous studio albums, and a feeling that something has to change. No-one’s asking them to do an Everything But the Girl (heaven forbid) but somehow the Tindersticks have got to come alight.
Supergrass
In It For The Money
Parlophone
It's always much easier to be nasty about a record than to praise it, especially one which has already been universally lauded to the heavens. Sometimes however, an album comes along which deserves all the acclaim it gets and more.
In the summer of 1995 Supergrass and their cheeky big bruvva labelmates Blur were rulers of all they surveyed, at once delighting us and approximately 14 listens later annoying the hell out of us with 'Alright' and 'Country House' respectively. Now, we are told, both bands have 'grown up'. 'Blur' was a fine album, damn near mighty fine, but one which in patches just failed to reach the stop in time for the bus marked 'Tunesville'. 'In it for the Money' not only catches that bus, but rides it to the end of the line and takes up permanent residence there. Top stuff all the way from the opening cash-crazed mantra of the title track to the human beatbox highjinks of 'Sometimes I Make You Sad' via highlights 'Tonight', third single 'Sun Hits the Sky' (which already has the brilliant misfortune of being overplayed to Alrightesque proportions) and organ-frenzied classic 'Going Out'.
But have the band really moved on? I don't think the mood here is so far from 'I Should Coco', maybe a little less self-consciously jovial but the basic elements remain intact: Guitars just the right side of self-indulgent, deranged drumming from the Muppet school of rhythm, backing vocals which would sound horrifically cheesy if attempted by anyone else but somehow perfect here, and above all a set of songs so simple and simply fantastic they'll wrestle you to the ground and slap you senseless every time. Don't even try to escape.
Supernaturals
It Doesn't Matter Anymore
Food
I just can't work out the Supernaturals. By rights, I should hate them and all they stand for, brandishing their particularly average indie-angst pop like a speccy kid with limp fringe. But I have to admit this album actually sounds rather good.
Now I know I'm going to get shouted down for my frankness, but this album really isn't that bad, honest. Take time to listen and the album matures past the initial stage where the Supernaturals merely sound like whiny little sods who need to go and get laid. Overblown and overindulgent, It Doesn't Matter Anymore cribs the best bits and worst mistakes from British pop history, from The Smiths to Shed Seven.
And I quite like the fact that they've not quite hit the mark with some songs (cf. Love Has Passed Away) because the single Smile, recently re-released is so ironically comic that you have to admire their cheek for trying.
They've squeezed all they can into this, their first album - and bless 'em they'll be better next time round, just wait and see.
You Am I
Hourly Daily
Warner Bros.
Australian band's
Subtle, dramatic album?
Well worth a listen
Twin Town
Original Soundtrack
A+M
I hate Wales. Granted, it has some of the most beautiful scenery you're ever likely to encounter, and some of the most exhilarating music this side of the millennium. But I still hate the dismal place.
You see, as a Brummie, it's compulsory to spend at least half your childhood holidays in the dreary place. And I'll grant you, I did have a great time in Cardigan Bay when I was five. But I also had particularly bad childhood memories from the place, most of which are so wretched, they've been buried deep in my subconscious.
Let me sum up Wales for you in ten words: cold, rain, arrogance, hills, coal, misery, biblical, rain, desolate. Rain. Ummm. This album isn't too bad, though.
There's some top hot pop moments with Dodgy, Catatonia and Super Furry Animals. And of course, the delicious Petula Clark swings into action with chart classic Downtown like the old trooper she is. Even now, the Manic's fantastic Motown Junk still drops like a thousand shots through my spine. And there's also a big chunk of DJ Shadow's Stem, all cut with choice dialogue from the film, a taster which makes the album slip down so easily.
A quality selection, and no doubt. Ho hum. La la la. It's all full of sheep, you know.
Ben Folds Five
Whatever And Ever Amen
Sony 550
Hopelessly twee and strewn with fundamental errors, this album will cause few critics to change their thoughts on BF5's eponymous début. However, those who enjoyed the prequel will doubtless be satisfied by this further delve into Ben Folds's optimistic twist on the current Geek USA wave.
All the catchy melodies and cheesy gang harmonies are still here to impress, while Ben's dynamic pianowork is backed up by the most proficient and involved rhythm section of the past few years. Caleb Southern's production seems sparse yet, when effective, is marvellous. Interestingly, few critics mention BF5's technical aptitude, which is even more strongly evident when they play live.
Of the twelve songs, seven are fantastic. 'Brick' and 'Smoke' are prime examples of Ben Folds's real check on relationships- no melodrama here. 'Steven's Last Night' is announced with a clarinet line best described as "thirties" and is followed by the track evolving into a humourous, swaggering highlight. 'Kate' is a 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' without hard drugs or messy walls and could evolve into a theme for teenage post-grunge optimism. Hurrah!
Errors strewn...yes, still true. This album could have done without the last three tracks. 'Missing The War' is unnecessary and 'Evaporated' is falling into the deep end of sentiment. Chart rocket 'Battle Of Who Could Care Less' is really a dud skud, while 'Song For The Dumped' is not a joke that lasts long. Pre-track snippets become irritating very quickly. Weighing pros and cons show this offering avoiding the 'crapsecondalbum' syndrome which is usually fatal. Happily, this album still has plenty to offer the fanbase (of which I am one) and it might just rope in some new blood. A flawed, but often rewarding album.
Bis
The New Transistor Heroes
Wiija
Bis. I just don't get Bis. The music side's easy; one part horribly catchy to three parts plain horrible. I just don't get the rest of it. I'm probably not clever enough- are they operating on some level of irony only dogs can hear? If so, it would certainly fit nicely with Manda Rin's voice. Ho-ho.
Are they serious? Surely no-one would WANT to contrive such a crap image. I'm confused, for Bis are the same age as me. I too can appreciate the merits of flying saucers and drawing in crayon, of skateboards and kung-fu movies, of dinosaurs and spaceships and cheap plastic toys. Why, these very items could serve to form the basis of an hilariously irreverent retrospective stand-up comedy routine, or a touching, but witty, observational song about childhood, possibly sung by top TV man Richard Digance. What these items shouldn't be is the basis for some political youth manifesto so lame as to not even merit the description 'half-arsed'. I just don't get...STOP.
I'm making the same mistake everyone always makes about Bis. Everyone is too hung-up debating whether or not they're cartoon characters to really get down to whether or not the tunes are any good.Which they're not. Of course, the image is inextricably linked to the music, and the two are mutually dependent. Bis have their image meticulously constucted, but the fact remains that the music is a sticky plastic mess.The only half-decent song on the album, the Bluresque 'Starbright Boy', is ruined halfway through by a squeaky 'rap' from Manda Rin.
I'm just not going to waste any more time on this. The only redeeming feature of this album is that it doesn't include the horror that was 'Kandy Pop'. Too many sherbet flying saucers make you sick anyway.
I seem to have drifted away from rock music of late. There’s been plenty of hip-hop, the occasional bit of dance, and anything I’ve listened to with guitars in it could quite easily be pigeonholed into the ‘quiff music’ category. Which might be one reason why this album made me feel as if I’ve been missing out on something for a while.
This is apparently Silkworm’s fifth album, and it has rekindled that part of me that started listening to Dinosaur Jr, or the Lemonheads, or Sebadoh all those years ago, the same part that picked up a guitar and learnt those three oh-so-important chords for myself. For although the album starts weakly, the opening track ‘Give Me Some Skin’ being too vague, too unfocussed, what follows here is brilliant. Alternating between full-on, distortion-heavy songs like ‘Never Met A Man I Didn’t Like’ or ‘Ice Station Zebra’ and quieter, acoustic-led laments such as ‘The City Glows’ or ‘Waiting On A Train’, we see the full range of this trio’s talents; the ability to do so much with so little, the unconventional this-is-how-it-feels lyrics, the J Mascis guitar solos, complex without being flashy, more about echoing the emotions of the song than about how many notes can be crammed into one beat.
So, until the next time that I long for ‘something different’, the breakbeats and spangly bowling shirts can take a back seat. I’m happy with guitars again, thank you very much.
Dinosaur Jr.
Hand It Over
Blanco Y Negro
We need the new wave of grunge like we need a hole in the head, but the return of J Mascis and his band is a timely reminder at how far the chart-bound alternative American music has fallen. With the likes of the Presidents, No Doubt, Green Day and the rest clogging up the charts with their grunge lite (TM) we needed a few noisy guitars to mess it up a bit. Of course, look under the superficial covering of American fodder and you will find some great music being made by the likes of Built To Spill, Swell, Tortoise and Pavement, but Dinosaur Jr were one of the select groups that preceded Nirvana and kick-started the movement from alternative to mainstream.
From the first track the guitars are noisy, the pace is fast and to be honest it stays very much that way. The thing is, J Mascis shouldn't be able to make pop music. His voice is pretty difficult to get used to, and his habit of putting great dissonant solos over everything shouldn't help, yet these songs still have that surefire melodic ring that is his hallmark. There are a couple of lovely touches like the flute on 'Never Bought It' and the really cheesy trumpet on 'I'm Insane' but it is through his guitar that Mascis really excels, as he twists melodies over melodies creating diffuse swirls of riffs and solos that never make much sense but work nonetheless.
One of the stand out tracks is the eight minute 'Alone'. A slow burning epic that oscillates between a light acoustic refrain and then an extremely fucked up feedback sound that bursts in like a sublime mass of sound. It's not epic as in 'self important pompous Smashing Pumpkins epic', it's epic as in seeing how far you can take this disintegration, how far you can get out of it. Noise as escape. I love it.
So, what does J write about? Well, the fact he's unhappy, the fact that he's not over his girlfriend, the fact that she's not over him, the fact that it's great sometimes but sometimes it's not. You know the usual stuff. What he expresses most is his complete inability to express anything. Song titles like 'I Don't Think', 'Nothin's Going On' and 'Gettin Rough' pretty much sum it up. If you're male and ever had a girlfriend you're going to empathise with his pathological insecurity about everything. Again, this shouldn't work. It should sound like some guy whining on about not getting on with his girlfriend, yet there is something that makes it work, that makes these songs great to listen to. I've not figured it out yet but I assure you, it's worth a shot.
In the current, very healthy, musical climate in Britain, we are in danger of forgetting that there is a country, on the other side of a large ocean called the Atlantic, called The United States Of America. It’s fairly big- you might even have heard of it. And like it or not, it has produced two or three quite important bands in its admittedly very short history, bands who appear to have been temporarily forgotten in our celebration of all that is great about British music past and present.
So there ought to perhaps be a sticker on the front of ‘Hometurf’, reading ‘THIS BAND HAVE BEEN UNASHAMEDLY INFLUENCED BY AMERICAN BANDS, EVEN IF THEY DO SOUND A BIT LIKE THE CLASH IN PLACES (AND THEY DO)’. From the first glance at the inlay card, it is obvious that Brother John Robb and friends have plundered much of the US Hardcore of the mid-to-late eighties for their ideas. There are the ‘straightedge’ lifestyle philosophies of Minor Threat and Rollins (don’t take drugs, educate your mind, don’t be a slacker) combined with the pseudo-political manifesto of Nation Of Ulysses (some of whom are now The Make-Up, the most obvious musical comparison to make with the ‘Blade).
Unfortunately, they’ve nicked the best parts of these bands’ ideas and completely failed to back them up with any tunes. This kind of music should hit you immediately, hurl you across your room with sheer force and make you get up with a stupid-bastard grin on your face to skip the needle back to the beginning and do it all over again. ‘Scream Dracula Scream’ by Rocket From The Crypt does this. ‘Hometurf’ does not.
The high points are the four singles (‘Soul Power’, ‘Black Elvis’, ‘Strictly Hardcore’ and newie ‘Not Even Jesus’), and other 11 tracks are unforgivable for any self-styled saviours of rock ‘n’ roll- predictable, unexciting, mediocre. See them live by all means, but don’t, under any circumstances, buy the album.
It's breaktime in the playground, and the girls are indulging in their favourite pastime - gossiping.
"Well, I don't like her," said the red-haired dancing girl. "She's too normal and keeps trying to impress us by being weird when she's not at all".
"Oh, Tori, don't be silly. She's just nervous and wants to be friends, all she wants to do is have some fun and it must be awful to be the new girl".
"She doesn't have to follow us around all the time though, does she Sheryl? We've only got rid of her now because the Alisha's Attic girls wanted to compare notes on us with her. They're always gossiping".
"Okay, I admit the sisters were a bit much at first, but at least Leah isn't as annoying as them, and they can't be gossiping about us- my ears aren't burning"
"I bet theirs are though. Even if we weren't talking about them, their ears would burn because they're such copycats. Did you hear her in assembly, trying to show off to Miss Morrisette with all that fake emotion?"
"Just because she's not as emotional as you, it doesn't mean she's a fake, Tori. She's just a bit more subtle. Anyway, Leah seems quite a happy soul".
"Happy! All she's ever going on about is life being a waste of time".
"Trust you to see the downside. She was telling me how important she thinks it is to make the most of life even if it is horrid".
"You are so annoyingly optimistic, Sheryl. Go and play with Leah if it makes you happy. It won't be any fun, though. You're so alike, it'll be like talking to yourself. How boring. Individuality is the only thing worth having in this life".
"She may not be very different or exciting, but at least she'll have a bit of a laugh with me. And to be perfectly honest, that's all I wanna do".