Album Reviews continued
Boothacre
Life In The City (self) is st sir Depending on which way you look at it, Oasis have either inspired a lot of peOple to form bands and that’s a great thing, or the Gallagher brothers’ Success has convinced many a chancer that their own lumpen take on pub rock deserves a wider audience. Fortunately Boothacre exhibit more of the genre's positive qualitities than the more boorish ones. So it’s a big hooray for their energetic and upfront guitar blustei coupled With the kind of super sciaraway vocals that could have groups of happily drunken lads
: throx'nng their arms around one
1 another and singing along down the student union. Entertaining without doing anything particularly new. (JT)
Soul Coughing
El Oso (London) tr
Once these men were jazzy, literate hipsters surfing a compulsive stream of skewed, inky black freak-beat. Now, they're directionless, tuneless alt- rockers meandering through the
3 desolate catacombs of unyielding iif‘il'(?(i(‘i.'ll El Oso is sharply indicative of the iiiiedifying dreck that’s churned out in the siillied name of art-rock; it’s one iiilll~.] being edgy and
; iincoinprmnising, qwte another being foi'inless to the point where the listener is actually offended by the artist's utter inability to cieate anything remotely ‘.‘./()liii\'.’iiliC. Here, for 'challenging’ read ’shite'. iPW)
Nashville Pussy
let Them Eat Pussy (The Eiiclave/litercury) xix it is s-r
One feverish glance at the name Nashyille Pussy, the XXX album title
j and the pair of hot to trot babes being ’eaten out’ on the sleeve -- hottest of all being 6ft 3in fire-breathing, bass playing Amazon Corey Parks — and you know this is going to be one sassy
l burn-up The Pussies came together in : NashVille, lifted their killer handle from ; an infamous Ted Nugent live intro on
i Double Live Gonzo and share an
insatiable appetite for gritty smash and grab raunch 'n’ roll. The unholy trinity 1 of AC/DC, Ted Nugent and Motorhead might be the starting pomt but ‘ attitude—wise this is 27 pedal-to-the- metal minutes of runaway badass punk. A must for all speedfreaks and Russ Meyer aficionados alike. (LT)
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52 THE LIST 22 Oct—S Nov 1998
Golden Smog
Weird Tales (Rykodisc) 'i‘s 1i" ‘5‘:
The second album from the mystery supergroup — which may or may not number members of Wilco, The Jayhawks, Soul Asylum and Big Star among its line-up — goes some way toward answering that burning 'What would the Rolling Stones sound like had they fused with Buffalo Springfield and then absorbed Gram Parsons' question; the answer being, 'Damned agreeable, Bubba.’ A rootsy-tootsy affair, all hidden whiskey tears, and plaintive yearning disguised as haVing a rockin' good time. So what if 'If I Only Had A Car’ sounds exactly like a missmg Neil Y0ung track? Beautiful, in that torn and frayed way (DL)
Johnny Lang
Wander This World (A&M)
Poor Johnny. Johnny has the blues. The ’eighteen-year-old-white-boy-whose- first-album-was-recorded-viihen-he- was-sixteen-and-is-still-selling-around- l7,000-copies-a-week, fresh-from- supporting-the-Stones-and-BB-King- and-Aerosmith, oh-and-a-cameo-in- Blues Brothers 2000’ blues, to be precise. This is his second album Just think of all the life experience, all the tow bus trauma, which has worn him heavin down Since he first appeared! Johnny plays a mean guitar, to be sure But then they say that about Eric Clapton. Whom he sounds exactly like. (DL)
Bobby Conn
Rise Up! (Atavistic/Truckstop)
it sir sir sir
If you thocight Maiilyn Manson’s heavily manicured posturing was out there, then try this, Where do you start
- with Chicago's rCSident 5ft Tin prophet
of Armageddon, who describes himself as a ’solo entertainer, motivatioml speaker, anti-Christ, born again Christian, guru and pimp' Sometimes on the edge, and more often, right over it, Rise Up/ finds our wandering impressario plotting a wandering tip toe through a bizarre stylistic ragbag of ’glam, deathfolk, pop and Vintage sOuI’ to say nothing of country and loungec0re. Delivered With seldom less than eve-of-the-Apocalypse frenzy, this impossible-to-ignore Jamboree of Cracked dimestore evangelism makes for strangely compelling, if at times hysterical listening. (LT)
.:’1
Golden Smog: more fun than golden rain
ROCK BECK
Mutations (Geffen) «is a a it
While this is the first new material from Beck since 1996's groundbreaking chartwrecker Odelay, the weird skinny kid with a penchant for cheese boards doesn't consider this a proper Beck release. He prefers to term it a 'parenthetical' album, a bracketed aside that was mostly written during the tour for Odelay. The next proper Beck album is scheduled to see the light of day in late 1999.
From the opening warped guitar twang on first track ‘Cold Brains’ we are firmly in familiar Beck territory: an odd place where surreal imagery gets put in the blender with psychedelic country
Becki warping country roads
and western tunes. Yet as recognisable as Mutations is, it’s no Odelay. Apart from the freakout electronica of ’Static', it's laidback rather than wired; there's nobody screaming about devils haircuts. Instead, you can trace its lineage back to more rootsy dustbowls where American folk music first told its slow tales. Beck has mixed up this heritage with a sprinkling of bar room blues and rhinestone melodies. At times and especially on ’Cancelled Check' or 'Sing It Again’, you could swear that Hank Williams has been reinvented. And that's no bad thing. It would seem that Beck has confounded
expectations again. (Jonathan Trew)
Spiritualised
Live At The Royal Albert Hall: 10th October 1997 (Deconstruction) This should be no ordinary live album, First off, it's Spiritualised, a band who have blueprinted the art of standing motionless on stage yet still delivering live thrills unparalleled by their peers (archivist note: presumably the Velvet Underground were first past the post in this department, but how many of you had access to their heady early
, shows?) Secondly, Jason Pierce and
chums are not afraid to depart from the definitive versions of their songs Thirdly, it's the Royal Albert Hall and there's full orchestra and gospel chon backing. However, you'll have to take most of this on trust because this particular live album doesn't sound a whole lot different from recorded Spiritualised. You get two CDs and
? sixteen tracks of faithfully but clinically
rendered back catalogue, with only the hypnotic coda of 'Cop Shoot COp' provrng to be anv real departure or conveying any sense of the space iFSF
System Of A Down System Of A Dow (American/Columbia)
Up for some deranged misfit metal“ The hotly tipped Armenia yes, Armenia yia LA experience that is SOAD would seem to fit the bill nicely SOAD's roots may well he far beyOnd what was once the lron Curtain, but don’t expect any metalled-iip, old school, Sovret-style anthems from these tightly wrapped dissidents Produced by Rick Rubin, this debut is a
1 wholly eccentric collision of metal,
hardcore and what can only he filed under a\'aiit-gaide Edgy isn t the ‘,'.'-;)l(i what we have are thirteen tiai ks and thiiteen convulsiye fits ‘.'.liil ii“,'iitica|2y brief titles :f pointer, try the (elky 1iiiiriecl2c.tat)Ility of punk oddballs Deyo ( i'ossed with the full ahead blast of a metal/hardcoie/rap
‘raii'ie i‘ifte' a stylistic
crossover act like Di)\.‘.’l‘.SC’i Walk this way if the word 'iiiavei'ick' holds no fear for you. (LT)
SlNGER/SONGWRITER Polly Phillips
lWish l Had Your Life (Koala Music)
This debut release for Phillips (a former ReVillos‘ backing singer, trainspotters) is also the first release on the fledgling Koala label Both the label and Phillips have strong connections ‘.'.lliii the Edinburgh Songwriters Showcase and, perhaps as you might expect, /l‘-/is‘h/ has a delicate (KOLlSilc feel. Her
voice is sweet and clear, switching
between the simple delivery of tracks like 'Low' to the Jazz siren call of ’TV Guy’ and the haunting gothic feel of 'Five Fish’ A definite cut above the majority of singer songwriters and not a million miles away from the hugely commercially successful s0unds of the
' world's Crows, Osbornes and even
Dions Just a bit more real. (JT) AMB ENT
Talvin Singh
OK (lslanci')
Leading the ia. 1.
of British Asian aitists who haue been dubbed the faces of the New Asian Cool, Talvin Singh mixes tabla playing into chaotic drum 'n’ bass patterns, puts an eastern slant on ambient soiindscapes and incorporates sitar riffs into digital seguences. All of
which sounds great in theory and less
rivetting on CD ’The world is sound’ intones a voice on opener ’Traveller' and while this might prompt the listener to anticipate a jc‘til’llt‘v thiough the mixed- up i.'-.'c"lrl' of the global inusii tillage, it's an eigoyable eni‘uiih voyage that leads to no destinatp‘n in paiti; tilai it's all itiei‘isant hut ali‘esn't really free up to its i‘7\l?t‘ci<iiii,fi‘s an i, ii irznih-cl tastei‘ui ambient passage 5:: was into \ie\\', it's difficult not to stop the word 'Vangelis' popping into mind tJT‘i