singles
In a varied month London’s new town trio S*M*A*S*H* kick you in the teeth, make youthink and grab the angry-ageing-young-men honours. Rob, Ed and Salv have hit their late 20s so they’re not strangers to the Who, the snottiness of the Pisto.' or the Clash or the still-born revolution of certain Preachers. That’s where they come from but they’ve arrived at their own status already if this five track S*M*A*S*H (Hi-Rise) collection of their first two singles is anything to go by. ‘Real Surreal’ is familiar guitar churning but with a sceptical view of reality used as a response to the death of a friend. The direct ‘Drugs Again’ condemns the easy option for failed relationships but it’s the acoustic intro leading to the punkish punch of ‘Revisited No 3’ and the pro-feminist ‘Lady Love Your Cunt’ that prove that these are rebels with songs and high IQs. Seek this out. “No-one knows she puts on secret clothes/And lies in the meadow with hands tied behind her back”. Yeah, Costello’s back and this snappy little couplet is the opening line from ‘l3 Steps Lead Down’ (Warners), a song with the sting and immediacy of an ‘Oliver’s Army’ and a taster from his brilliant new album Brutal Youth. But don’t go on a murder spree for the other two tracks, the odd instrumental ‘ldiophone’ and the burlesque treatment of Yeats ‘Drunken Man’s Praise of Sobriety’ coz they’re mainly indulgences of an awkward Dubliner.
Staying with solo people, and Matthew Sweet starts the year with a maxi EP, Song of Altered Beast (Zoo) which opens with the glorious ‘Devil With The Green Eyes’, slightly re-mixed from last
year’s ‘Altered Beast’ version, and runs through some live stuff before concluding with ‘Ultrasuede’, a heavyish studio outtake. Tasty. And finally in this month’s star zone is the unparalleled k.d. lang whose ‘Hush Sweet Lover’ (Sire) is a smooth velvety ballad, just one of the styles she was born for. As on ‘Just Keep Me Moving’ she slips into funky grear, baby, without even shedding a drop of her peerless cool. In between things starts with Trent Reznor’s Nine Inch Nails whose anti-ambient crusade continues with brain-crushing effectiveness on March of the Pigs, five tracks of distorted, percussive frenzy. Nails in the head is a taste worth acquiring. As is the quaint approach of Sydney’s Whipper Snappers whose Dragster EP (Sony) is a seductive blend of folky dual female vocals with the rougher experience of guitar crunch. And if there’s a brave-but-late award this month it has to go to Memphis’s Mutha’s Day Out for ‘Locked’ (Chrysalis), a Nirvana pastiche if ever there was one . . . smells like burning rubber from the grunge bus they just missed. R n’B is making a comeback, that’s official. Hunters and Collectors have rediscovered slide guitars and the twelve bar on the workmanlike ‘Easy’ (White), Blind Melon make whining FM noises on ‘Change’ (Capitol), the Screamin’ Cheetah Wheelies shake the blues on ‘Shakin’ the Blues’ (Atlantic) and Sass Jordan’s ‘High Road Easy’ (Impact) is Joplin made easy. Stepping down from the tram and we confront the art of pointless covers. Guns n’Roses slaughter the Skyliners ‘Since I Don’t Have You’ (Geffen) with Axl showing pitiable vocal range. The Ramones do a faithful and superfluous job of ‘Substitute’ (Chrysalis) and Primus can only add a slightly mutanttwitch to Gabriel’s ‘lntruder’ and XTC’s ‘Makin’ Plans For Nigel’ (Interscope) from their Miscellaneous Debris EP. See ya.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/RIU19940501.2.65
Bibliographic details
Rip It Up, Issue 201, 1 May 1994, Page 39
Word Count
574singles Rip It Up, Issue 201, 1 May 1994, Page 39
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