Singles
A double whammy of 80s greats. Musically, the Echo & the Bunnymen single banged in my face: a return to the sparse, jagged guitar sound that characterised their early work. Sadly, though, McCulloch seems to have lost his lyrical touch - the man who once sung "Am I the 'shall' in 'po-ten-shall'?" is now reduced to sub-Oasis triteness.
Depeche Mode's single, however, is surprisingly good (I'd always thought they were shit)- a taut, minimal song stretched over an acoustic, bluesy riff with a nice melody in the chorus.
A good showing from these two rock veterans. Still, fuck the 80s - bring on the EMF comeback!
Oliver E Holtaway
Despite harbouring an inexplicable devotion to their cause, even I never really thought I'd ever find myself saying this about anything released by Shifty Disco: Their April release, by Tokyo's Astro-B', could well end up the greatest pop song released this year. Hyperbolic? You should hear the thing. To speak of it as one song just doesn't do it justice: there's more going on here than in the whole of the top 40 put together. A 'Paranoid Android' for the Popstars generation, if you like, there are at least six 'movements' flawlessly crammed into just under five minutes, each utterly sublime and with a critique of modern society more profound than any Japanese speakers of pidgin English have any right to make. I still don't know what the hell a Yoga Disco is, or where to find one, but if I ever find out, I'll kiss my degree goodbye. On this evidence, it sounds infinitely better than anything at Park End, that's for sure.
Martin Sainsbury
Alabama 3 do their best to sound a credit to their adopted homeland. Voices honed on Jack Daniels ooze like molasses, while the slide guitar would make any rhinestone cowboy forget the loss of their car/girl/gun/dog for at least the next three minutes thirty.
But the good ol' boys' B-side dance remix gives away the fact that it's Deepest South London they hail from. Even the A-side, though, is music you could dance to with someone other than your sister. Mansion on the Hill's a good time party tune, which does its best to make you ignore the strangulated voices in the background. The cops may have just closed down the small town's divey bar, but they're sure not looking for the far worse stuff going on out in the sticks.
David Milliken
counterfeit adj 1 made in imitation of something else with intent to deceive or defraud 2 insincere, feigned 3 Lowgold Richard Shirnery
Confounded by both the critical assertion that "quiet is the new loud" and the commercial necessity of replicating packaged-plastic Hear'Say, Wetherby's finest (and quite possibly only) exports return to convince press and public alike that pastoral lo-fi is the future of rock. Tough one, that.
'Home Is Where It Hurts' introduces Hood's sheer propulsive insistency, all nagging guitars and driving bass, whilst 'The World Touches Too Hard' superimposes the chilling, sotto voce delivery "life scares me to death" onto a juxtaposition of warm, muted piano and skittery electronica. It's 'The Fact That You Failed', however, which really merits a swift ascendancy; hypnotic two-note pivots, pseudo-meditative whispers and layers of dissonant guitar evoke windswept cliffs, raging seas and the apocalypse of nature itself. Sustaining anticipation before drifting into tantalising oblivion, suspended between realisation and acceptance, Hood explore the indefinite space between perception and reality. Occasional snatches of mantra aside, the indecipherable lyrics prove that music which speaks this loudly doesn't need to say anything at all.
Ria Hopkinson
26th Apr 2001