albums

Rip It Up, Issue 177, 1 April 1992, Page 24

albums

3Ds Hellzapoppin (Flying Nun) . The 3Ds have sold out. Yes, and I'm a stockbroker...

Actually, the 3Ds have made an album so full of verve and life that they can do what they damn well want so far as I'm concerned. Their American label First Warning must be delighted that the modicum of extra cash it

provided has turned up a record like this one. The 3Ds previous recordings have had their merits, but they tended to obscure rather than highlight their talents. Fish Street Studios has never smelled better than it does on

Hellzapoppin. The band were apparently - concerned that they shouldn't over-rehearse before recording and it was emphatically the right approach. It sounds as lively and ragged as only fresh tunes can. The opening shot 'Outer Space' is the most exuberant song about rampant alienation that you're ever likely to hear. The weird issue (in the case of Teacher Is Dead' very weird) of David Mitchell dominates, but Hellzapoppin is clearly the product of three distinctive songwriting voices. David Saunders' title track and 'Sunken Treasure' (which constantly threatens to break into.

Wire's 'Outdoor Miner') positively ooze life and Denise Roughan, author.? of gorgeous LBGP songs of yore, chips in the nicely creepy 'Sunken Head' and the twinkling 'Jewel'. When he's not playing his own tunes, Mitchell .< continues to haul in his lead breaks from the fourth dimension and born-again drummer Dominic Stones remains as strong and silent as his legendary flatulence. This will work a treat in the US market, but it's anything but premeditated. Where so many American bands pay rather too close attention to the Received Rules of Rock, the 3Ds just stagger down their own path, falling over instruments as unlikely as the erhu and the appalachian dulcimer along the way. Long may the sea roll under them. RUSSELL BROWN JESUS & THE MARY CHAIN Honey's Dead (Blanco Y Negro) The title's a lie, of course, the Honey for whom Jim had so much trouble eating up the scum on Psychocandy is as alive and well as an ageing Glaswegian junkie consumptive could hope to be. On their fifth album the boys are pursuing her interests—. . Christ eroticised on the cross, the collapse of love/ lust into the death

instinct, the search for the ultimate one chord reverberation, more single mindedly than ever. So much so that the backing vocals from 'Nine Million Rainy Days' and the bassline from Honey's cover 'Sidewalking' are reproduced note for note. But this kind of obsessiveness is an aesthetic in itself, and the knowledge that it's approaching its perfect expression just adds to the thrill of a song like 'Reverence' which goes *l want to die like Jesus Christ/1 wanna die/1 wanna die* over a riff that kicks more anus than Mudhoney ever dreamt of (without sounding like Lynrd Skynrd). Teenage Lusf is just as goddam

awesome, the absolute embodiment of. its title. Why do these thirty plus media professionals know all about unhealthy urges while today's teenagers are turned on by baggy shorted Red Hot • Chili Addiction bozos? There are other outbreaks of sublimity on 'Honey's Dead', not least the savage 'Sugar Ray' (this group are perhaps the only one in history to

make noisy guitar rock and big budget productions make sense together) and 'Good For My Soul', a piece of

amplified frailty recalling 'Playing With Fire' era Spacemen Three. There are, however, far too many of those in-between sort of songs that fill up CD (humbug) space, the not very loud or quiet airplay ready ones in the tradition of 'Happy When It Rains'or 'Halfway To Crazy 7 . Despite that, the continued, if sporadic ferocity of the mid-career, financially comfortable Jesus And Mary Chain is proof that the active ingredient in records that bristle with narcissism and sexual tension is not 'authentic* artistic suffering but the ability to pose and be convincing.

MATTHEW HYLAND

DAVID BYRNE Uh-Oh . (Sire) ian McCulloch Mysterio (East West) Boys without bands — can they keep swinging and if they can who really cares? With Talking Heads a thing of the past, Byrne now has a whole future of individual excesses and eccentricities before him, but on Uh-Oh he's accepted an eclectic approach with ' occasional Latin flourishes that's close enough to the band's sound to be regarded as an apology for overly distancing himself from Talking Heads in the past. ’ This doesn't mean Uh-Oh is a successful return to Byrne's peak powers of inspiration — in fact his sociological statements show that he's still hung up on the peculiarities of human behaviour that he explored in the irritating True Stories movie. At best he's dropped the self-conscious idiosyncracies of his writing to allow himself the luxury of the spinal snap of 'She's Mad', the sparse alienation of 'Monkey Man' and the catchy allegory of Tiny Town'. But elsewhere the ■ messages, the off-beat humour and the carefully wrought funkiness are too familiar Byrne trademarks to lift Uh-Oh out of the predictable.

• lan McCulloch shares a similar > ' predicament—how to stay relevant a decade away from his best work. His first solo album, Candleland, released nearly three years ago, was a rich and heartfelt response to personal tragedy, a reversal of the half-realised fantasies that the Bunnymen were ' lapsing into in their self-celebratory latter days. Mysterio returns to the feel of a band format, but whereas the

Bunnymen became trapped inside their own mythology, Mysterio works as a collection of songs with the McCulloch ice-cool touch, but minus ' the narcissistic tendencies to image making. In other words, 'Close Your

Eyes', Webleed' and 'Heaven's Gate' are beautiful songs devoid of

affectation and 'Lover Lover Lover 7 is a Leonard Cohen cover par excellence. 'Damnation' is the obligatory ass-kick and 'Magical World' turns the irony of its title into something of a minor anthem. ;

Whereas Byrne's songs struggle to shake off his mannerisms, McCulloch's best ensure that Mysterio is removed from his worst past foilings. GEORGE KAY

PUSH PUSH A Trillion Shades Of Happy (Tall Poppy) Almost a pointless exercise trying to review this one, as I'm sure just about everyone who has even a vague ' - • interest in new music has made up their minds about Push Push. Unfortunately, this is more often than not without hearing the album, which certainly does these boys a huge disservice. Sure the/re pretty boy, hair wagging

groin thrusting rock stars, but the/ve actually gone and made a very good hair wagging rock album. It's not as ' mainstream as you'd imagine, there are moments of the completely raucous craziness that first propelled them to the public eye. The likes of. 'Beating Up Bullfrogs' is a great

celebration of being young, happy and in control of a large amplifier, and of * course there's Trippin', which is without a doubt one of the best locally produced pop songs ever. Part of the album's success can be attributed to the sound, there's no half-assed flat local production job here, the whole deal sounds huge, very dean, powerful and professional. Sure there's weak spots here, I'm not entirely sold on the spaced out moments and at times some tracks seem just too mainstream corporate rock for my taste, but those are the songs that come from a band who like Guns N Roses et al, and those are the songs that will cause millions of kids to buy

this. Overall, A Trillion Shades Of Happy is as close to ideal as a local band can get with their debut, it catches not only the spirit of where they come from musically, but it's a great representation of them in a live sense, which is how we are used to them. Love them or hate them, Push Push are at least out there doing it, and doing it well. KIRKGEE

ERIC CLAPTON Rush (Reprise) During most of the 80s Ry Cooder was the only rock guitarist making a creditable job of movie scoring, writing and recording soundtracks that were worth replaying without the accompanying pictures. Then Clapton entered the field with his astonishing music for TV’s Edge of Darkness, although subsequent work—for " example on Mickey Rourke's Homeboy— was not quite as - • “

impressive. That is until now. Rush is not only a very satisfying album in its own right, it also presents a fine

cross-section of Clapton's distinctive talents. r - The first seven tracks are instrumentals and range from the

gentle, dreamlike 'Kristen and Jim' to the biting blues-based Tracks and Lines'. 'Realisation' in particular, with its spooky evocation of both the menace and serenity found in wide open spaces, recalls the best of his Edge of Darkness work. Of all these tracks only 'Will Gaines' seems merely a piece of movie filler.

The vocal tracks are all first rate, though in different styles. 'Help Me Up' is a sturdy mid-tempo pop song which could have fitted well on the recent

Journeyman album, (and, indeed, might have provided it with another hit single). 'Don't Know Which Way To Go' is a 10-minute rendition of Willie

Dixon's slow-burning blues featuring Buddy Guy on vocals. Last, and far from least, comes the unlikely hit Tears In Heaven', so obviously written out of Clapton's grief over the death of his four-year-old son. This achingly tender ballad recalls such songs as 'Wonderful Tonight' written in the 70s. Rush, the movie, is a story about the

dangers of drug abuse, a subject with which Clapton is not unfamiliar. Perhaps it combined with his inevitable introspection following the bereavement to so stimulate his creativity. We are fortunate to be able to enjoy the results. PETER THOMSON

WHITE ZOMBIE La Sexorcisto: Devil Music Vol.l (D.G.C.)

Utterly lame album title, but the contents are very, very fine indeed. White Zombie were once really unlistenable but fascinating New York art noise merchants, now they've signed to a major label, moved to LA and become a great ultra-heavy metal act. They've not lost any of their power, they've just started writing proper songs and gained some tightness and incredibly strong production. There's a complete wall of sound happening here, guitars never sounded so nasty, the bass is plain dangerous and Rob Zombie does a great half growl, half scream that gets a little annoying at times, but definitely suits the vibe. Samples are used to nice effect as well, in Welcome To Planet Motherfucker' they work like

percussion, while they do the atmospheric thing in 'Black Sunshine'. La Sexorcisto (Lame Spanish grammar too) certainly won't appeal to most of the hard rock fraternity, the TV asswipes won't be programming 'Knuckleduster in there with yet more Zeppelin, but hey, variety is the spice of life and all that, so if you want something a little more aggressive than Mr Big, but without getting messy, then this is the deal. KIRK GEE BUDDYGUY Stone Crazy (Alligator) HOUND DOG TAYLOR AND THE HOUSEROCKERS Genuine Houserocking Music (Alligator) Two reissues from Alligator through their recent distribution deal with

Festival, Stone Crazy is a real Buddy Buy album. No special guest stars or rerecordings here, just Buddy and his equally talented brother Phil on

second guitar backed by their road band of the time, JW Williams on bass and Ray Allison on drums. Originally recorded and released in France on the Isobel label in 1979 this set is unadulterated raw and wild blues. I

must admit not getting in to this when it first came out having grown up on Guy's Vanguard and Chess sides, but coming back to this album particularly after the Damn Right I Got The Blues supersession rehash, this set has impressed. The songs are long and rambling but Guy is in fine impassioned voice and his guitar dynmaic and electrifying. It is interesting to pick the Clapton and Page licks and is worthy of a listen if you have come to the man through his recent album and especially if you have ever muttered 'Clapton is god'. Did you know that the chap who wrote about Clapton on a London wall was somewhat illiterate and really only thought that Clapton was 'good'! Meanwhile in Chicago, Bruce Inglauer set up Alligator Records in 1971 to record his favourite band Hound Dog Taylor and the Houserockers. Genuine Houserocking Music is compiled from out-takes of the two studio albums Taylor recorded before his death in 1975 at the age of 60. This is genuine houserocking music, loud and tough, recorded live in the studio and features Taylor's weathered, well oiled voice, his trademark cheap Japanese electric guitar and screaching bottleneck

(played with a brass slide made from a cut down kitchen chair leg). The Houserockers, Brewer Phillips on

second guitar (no bass needed here) fills out the rhythms while the chopping simplicity of Ted Harvey's minimal drum kit keeps time for standard twelve bar bar room blues played with manic intensity and enthusiasm. One to rock the house and roll the neighbours. JOHNPILLEY SUGARCUBES Stick Around For Joy (One Little Indian) Positivity, isn't it a disgusting notion. The world spits repeatedly in your face and if you don't enjoy it some New Age scum will tell you H's your own fault. Hippy happy sentiments have always sounded especially stupid when connected in any way with music. In fact, it's hard to say why but the Rock Illusion seems to require some

semblance of angst in order to generate any excitement at all. So why are the Sugarcubes so patently Not Unhappy, also so demonstrably (despite popular RIU opinion) not crap? Well for one thing they can be as bad as it's possible to be. The last album was full of woefully 'wacky* novelties and on this one 'Vitamin' and

the single 'Hif sound like the kind of disco-cum-TV theme atrocities drunk people at parties pretend to be only pretending to like. I suspect that the reason they do get away with it more often than not, though, is that the exuberance is always mixed with something else. Sometimes ifs Einar's devastating irony (the two steps ahead of you, bible black sort, not the cosy, kitsch Boney M ha ha sort), and sometimes ifs the way the music-thunderous drums, turbulent guitars and of course the utterly impossible voice of Bjork Gudmundsdottier (!) — sounds like ifs about to burst into tears even at its most joyful. The cumulative effect isn't an REM-style compromise (ie 'l'm a little bit happy and a little bit sad so I think I'll sit here and talk earnestly about nature for another few weeks') but a constant, unreal but un-glib spectacle of sensual delight overcoming misery at its most powerful. Oh, and incidentally there are exactly the same number of references to elves and fairies (as opposed to naked intruders refusing strawberry cake) as on the first album; absolutely none.

MATTHE WHYLAND