Sixteen Horsepower
Coal Black Horses
(A&M Records)

Catholic sin is so satisfying in comparison to atheistic guilt; murder is a serious stench against common law etiquette but it’s a migraine next to eternal damnation, where even doubt has fiery whiskers. In this world of Thomas Wolfe where the stakes are higher, and frequently burning, David Eugene Edwards and Sixteen Horsepower demand judgement and are preparing, without apology, with an exorcism of their darkest moments, which could fill a thousand barns and a thousand nights. This single is a blood-red romantic purge. Dance to it and you’re sad, walk with it and you’re immortal, in one guise or the next.

Beth Orton
Best Bit
(Heavenly)

I’m completely apathetic to the title track. The songs with guest appearances are more interesting but slightly less interesting than being actually interesting. I turn to guidance from a senior member of the Baggage. He slurred Tammy Wynette. So the question is, do you like Tammy Wynette? Hmmmm?

Paul Weller
Mermaids
(Island)

The debate answered... The French locked him up for crimes against the decade. He argues that contrary to democracy he is still in the Sixties. They may let him out on the technicality that he does appear to think it’s 1967 and all musical evidence confirms such a notion. Perhaps he should go jungle?

Tanya Donelly
The Bright Light
(4AD)

A career to shame Sisyphus for determination sometimes embarrasses the public. Too many times in too many ways has she climbed the hill, perfected the art and then glanced as each line up rolls away. But this provides momentum at least and there is always progression. On the single the sound is impeccable. Perhaps like Kristen Hersh’s ‘Bright Yellow Gun’ it lacks the unkempt genius of previous years to maintain staying power. But soon I predict her imagination will run as wild and ruthless as her talent.

The Verve
Lucky Man
(Hut)

Does all the right things, hits all the right spots, well timed interjections, good development, look at the riffs on that one, it’s got strings you know, goal, play it loud yeh! and you can hear it better. I can understand it, why people love them, why they’re popular, but such effectiveness while lulling me makes me feel too complacent, too eager to comply to such studied ‘songs from the heart’.

Lambchop
Your Sucking Funny Day
(City Slang)

Where they make absolute sense. A bitter, sad, revelry; uplifting indignation. That emotion when the wounds have scabbed and bitterness is too self-punishing. When you cry “enough” and raise your spirits with anger and an impulse to stand up, put your head on straight and walk into the daybreak. Then the Petrified Florist is a desolate track of dependence and weakness, the prelude and epilogue to the first track. And the final track makes me laugh and dance like a lunatic. Single of the century for covering my life; indignation when you have the energy, sadness when you don’t and joy when drunk.

Lightning Seeds
What You Say
(Epic)

Sounds like The Beautiful South trying to be Trembling Blue Stars which is neither here nor there because... oh! It’s just so completely pointless. Unhappy bands, really unhappy bands, are great, but this is half-arsed “I feel kind of boring” music. The depressed make you feel like rainbows and daggers and “at least I’m not that bad”, but the pathetic make you feel irritated. Whether Mr Broudie feels real sorrow is neither here nor there because it doesn’t translate. Saccharine sadness, music for people who think sadness is actually quite comforting. It can be a friend, but certainly not a kind friend. More the friend who’ll tell you can fly and push you off the cliff. Perfect pointless pitiful pop that’s quite nice really, like mild cheese food.

Portishead
Over
(Go! Beat)

Edgy, seriously edgy; Hitchcock on heroin. An anima of blood running hot and cold with love and hate, flooded with a thousand emotional contradictions, of every jealousy and bitterness plus unhinged delight and satisfaction and finally a smell of control, of channelling, of forcing a breathing space in the eye of the tornado. The control, the distance of artifice and the raw emotion is the ultimate relationship in Portishead’s music. (They make such a gut wrenching feeling in the listener combined with an intrigue, an edge that you cannot get accustomed to and keeps the mind fully involved.) Music for all of the person, not a cheap shot below the belt, the skin or the skull; a bath of whiskey and rumour.

Dust Junkys
Nonstopoperation
(Polydor)

There’s a Rage guitar thing, a Chilli Pepper bass, a Fun Loving Criminals drum thing, a sneer lyric thing and a Beastie Boys scratch sound. The Lo Fidelity Allstars do this thing better, a lot better. But Dust Junkys get to tour with Black Grape. Which is fine because apparently their new album is more like the comedown than the high. The mixes are better, I think, but I don’t feel like dancing (although I could if I was wrecked...)

Sleeper
Romeo Me
(Indolent)

It’s not bad, which makes it terrible. The vocals don’t fit particularly with the music but aren’t offset strikingly either. The lyrics are wry but nothing inspired like Lambchop or Belle And Sebastian. And I can’t stop thinking of who’s making it. Which must piss her off because her character is in the way of her audience. And she obviously means what she’s saying but that doesn’t mean she says it well. It’s a fifty-fifty split - no attention if it wasn’t her vs bad attention because it’s her. I was ready to rant and rave and spit bile but in the end I just feel quite sorry for her. And there’s nothing so pathetic as someone who inspires pity. Which makes me feel more sorry... continue ad infinitum.

The Candyskins
Feed It
(Ultimate)

Again, it’s not that it’s that bad. The melody is fine but there’s no counterpoint. The guitars crunch at the chorus and stop again two lines later. It’s mid-pace food with no garnish and no side-order. There’s a great moment when a gaggle of children appear and sing badly, and there are trumpets, but still? You can drive fast in slow cars by breaking the speed limit. But if you had a choice you’d do it in a fast car, or a strange car or an interesting car or a skateboard but not a Ford Fiesta. What does disturb me is a jungle remix. Seriously. No apology or anything. I thought that behaviour was only in the cliché parallel universe.

U2
If God Will Send His Angels
(Island)

Everyone got really excited about the dance influence in U2, but this is a straight big old ballad. I can’t hate U2. I can’t love them. I don’t think that they destroyed all music in the eighties. I don’t believe that they invented anything remarkable. The post-modern trip is hardly new and my gran knows what irony means, it’s that old. And it doesn’t mean being crap and admitting it. It’s more like a black fly in your chardonnay, rain on your wedding day, ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife. And U2? The fast ones are no good, but this one, though uninspiring, is affecting.

Cast
I’m So Lonely
(Polydor)

I have a friend, a very funny friend. One of the greatest moments of my sad life was when, just sick enough and drunk enough to be super-confident, he stood on a table at the end of an embarrassing Christmas party to declaim the last three songs the DJ always plays - the slow songs, big burdensome ballads that sing of loss and loneliness and ironically bring together pairs of rampant teenagers to dance slowly in a circle trying to look dead deep while thinking of tits and tushes. ‘I’m So Lonely’ is one of those songs.