albums

Rip It Up, Issue 211, 1 March 1995, Page 28

albums

■ THROWING MUSES University (4AD) Time to roll out the mortar boards and dust off the academicals — Throwing Muses are back, and this time their poetic and intellectual aspirations seem to be nakedly admitted in the album title, University. Actually, the title alludes to universality, and not to any higher learning many have thought was a pre-requi-site for cracking Kristin Hersh’s cryptic, internal world. Relax ‘cause University is their most accessible, orthodox and least intense album ever. For these reasons, arguments that it’s also their best are pretty persuasive. The idiosyncratic energy of the band and Hersh's often strident attempts at conveying her own songs are still there but University rocks and rolls with a consistency they haven't previously mustered. Enough has been written in this issue about the merits of ‘Bright Yellow .Gun’, and that could be joined by ‘Hazing’ and ‘Shimmer’. ‘Crabtown’ crawls delightfully, with veiled sexual undertones, and the doubts of ‘Teller’ are delivered in a haunted, inescapable tread. Mere highlights from an album that should convince the sceptics you don’t need advanced psychology to appreciate the Muses’ rock ‘n'roll. GEORGE KAY ISIOUXSIE AND THE BANSHEES The Rapture (Polydor) It’s getting to the stage where one can almost be called old fashioned for clutching a disc from these old devils with eager fingers. It’s almost two decades since Siouxsie’s early public appearances as a wild punk princess in a pair-of-tits T-shirt. That early footage and the incendiary albums which followed blew my mind. These days, each new album shocks me with news of the band growing older. Siouxsie is still holding the grand dame of Gothic look well. And Budgie... well, Budgie is starting to bear a remarkable resemblance to a sort of damned Danny Kaye. Good on him too, but I’m jolly glad it hasn’t rubbed off on his drumming. I was a little afraid at first, for the shuffling drum loops of the lovely but light ‘0 Baby’ open this album. True fans will have to hang in there for his relentless intro to ‘Not Forgotten’. It is also here that Siouxsie’s banshee returns to its house of howls, but that’s later. It’s still relatively light on the instrumental side for track two, ‘Tearing Apart’, but the vocals get tantalisingly closer to their wilder origins. Well, as wild as you can be in the presence of a poppy keyboard lead. The more inspired stuff begins with ‘Stargazer’. It's here you realise aging has benefitted the band’s experience, even if it is at the cost of their previous abundance of evil intent. Instead, we get some breathtaking moments of beauty, such as the cavernous guitar intro of ‘Fall From Grace’ and the intricate strings and guitars that grace the melancholic ‘Forever’. ‘The Rapture’ is the soaring epic of the piece (clocking in at 11.32). This is a true modern symphony, which quietly screams to be picked up for a dance work. In fact, it’s mostly quiet

screams for attention here, except for

the climax of ‘Love Out Me’. This track is as good a reason I've found for programmable CD players. I’ve ridden waves of ambience to Nighty Night Land with this album, only to wake bolt upright, in a cold sweat, hearing the lyrics: ‘I smash the glass into my face / Cutting through to my disgrace.’ I certainly didn’t mind being jerked screaming from sleep for the album’s finest moment, all I can say is it’s a bloody good thing I don’t sleepwalk! BRONWYN TRUDGEON I MASSIVE ATTACK VS. MAD PROFESSOR No Protection (Virgin) The Mad Professor, aka Neil Fraser, has produced more than 100 dub albums since he started with a four-track studio in his front room. Now’s he’s taken the mixing desk to Massive Attack’s second album. The result is a mind altering musical attack. At times unsettling, at times un-nervingly good. The cut and paste approach doesn’t always improve on the originals, especially the Horace Andy tracks, but this is serious dubwise stuff. Deep, deep drums, vocals that drift across the soundscape, music that ripples and changes in character with the Mad Professor’s sure hand on the controls. It’s what the Massive Attack soundscape would sound like after an earthquake had sent great shuddering cracks through those smooth sounds. MARK REVINGTON JPS EXPERIENCE Jean Paul Sartre Experience (Flying Nun) THE CLEAN Oddities (Flying Nun) Another couple of re-releases dredged up from the catacombs at the nunnery. Any more of these will almost amount to a tacit admission from the New Zealand’s premier independent record label that their best is behind them. Hopefully the justification for these albums is based more on commercial reasoning than desperation. There must be an awful lot of recently converted Nun acolytes (many of them in overseas markets) who would be hungry for the re-release of such seminal (and difficult to obtain) recordings. This is also known as money for old rope, but I’m not about to complain when the material is as good as that contained on the JPS Experience CD — a collection of all the tracks from their first eponymous EP and debut album Love Songs. It’s not overstating the matter to compare that first EP favourably to other classic Nun EPs — the Verlaines’ 10 O’clock In The Afternoon, the Clean’s Boodle Boodle Boodle, Straitjacket Fits’ Life In One Chord, Goblin Mix, Tall Dwarfs, Doublehappys — actually the list goes on. Moving from delicate to moody, not a note is wasted and the five tracks from that EP (including the monumental ‘Flex’) seem to make even more sense now than they did then. The following debut album was somewhat berated when released, and perhaps did suffer a touch from ‘how-do-we-to p-the-f i rst-eff o rt ’ sy n d ro me. Hindsight, however, reveals it as a compelling wistful, almost goofy, pop record,

where the band release their inhibitions and do what comes naturally. Occasionaly that meant some ill advised white-boy funk, as on ‘Crap Rap’ and ‘Let the Good Thing Grow’, but it also spawned the gorgeous ‘Grey Parade’ and the totally dumb, but totally addictive ‘I Like Rain’. If time has been (for the most part) charitable to the JPS Experience rerelease, it is markedly less so for the ‘Clean’s Oddities. Originally released on cassette, the ‘Oddities' sessions were recorded in ‘very relaxed’ circumstances in the band’s practice room, on a borrowed two-track. The album does contain its share of minor gems — alternative versions of Clean classics such as ‘Thumbs Off’, ‘Getting Older’, ‘End Of My Dream’ and ‘Sad Eyed Lady'. But, if these are the rough diamonds, then the rest is very much coal from the Clean slag heap. Too much of it sounds like little more than practice room doodlings and the ‘fi’ is intrusively ‘lo’ to the point of irritation. At the time of its release, Oddities may have sounded like a breath of fresh air, inspiring countless fledgling garage bands to ‘have a go’, but, removed from its own time frame, it simply runs out of puff. MARTIN BELL ITRANSGLOBAL UNDERGROUND International Times (Sony) Well, at least they’ve got a sense of humour. “Good things come to those who wait,” says the sample that opens the album. Considering we were expecting this last July, then watched its release overseas and still waited, the salivation was hydrodam filling. And, yeah, it is quite good. What puts the Transglobals ahead of all the other ethno practitioners (poxy Green Forest etc), is their ability to merge the coolest eastern and western sounds of surround. It’s not just African tribes for the sake of it. Bassy dance beats merge with bongos, snake charmer clarinets interwangle with violins, rap compliments Indian choirs. International Times is more cloudy than their debut. The crystal clear production is gone and they’ve opted for a warm, less jarring sound, akin to old tracks like ‘I Voyager’. It does have its share of uneventful background music. Like ‘Protean’ which starts off like a third world version of a Prince intro and turns into the theme from Bombay Vice. Their attempt at dub, ‘Dopi’,’ is just plain dull. But then ‘Dustbowl’ is stunning — jumbo bass and trickling vocal sounding like some crowded ancient Indian Colosseum. ‘Holy Roman Empire’ is about as hard hitting as they get, with a stomping rap and metallic guitar riffs. ‘Topkapi’ sways around, dazed, like the living dead on downers. And, after the initial amazement at their fluidity of sound, the taste of their melting pot, there are over 70 minutes of other worldly pleasures to experience. JOHN TAITE IPJ HARVEY To Bring You My Love (Island) ‘I was born in the desert / I’ve been

down for years / Jesus come closer / I think my time is near...’ This is a fine summation of Polly Jean Harvey. You’d have to be goddamn strong to be an ice queen living in the desert. Polly is that. She sings her time is near just three songs into this album’s first and title track, then hauls herself through a whole album of gut twsiters that spit in the face of any Saint Peter type, before being perfectly closed by the redemption of ‘The Dancer’. Flood and John Parrish join Polly as producers this time round. The band name still sticks, but Flood, for one, is calling this very much Polly’s project, despite anything one may read into ‘Working For The Man’. This track puts the heaviest pressure on your bass monitor it will have felt in a while (and will brace it well for the muted thud of ‘I Think I’m A Mother’), before beating its way to one of those squealing hurts you hear just before your hearing goess. 'C’Mon Billy’ trades the bass for violin, teamed with acoustic guitar, augmenting one of the album’s finest tracks. While PJ’s left holding the baby here, she’s looking for a lost one on the eerily hissed ‘Down By The Water’. The best vocals are delivered on ‘Teclo’ and ‘Send His Love To Me’, which remind you just how essential this talent is, while unearthing a couple of dozen more of those often hauled otu Patti Smith comparisons. ‘Long Snake Moan’ is a slow driven rocker which I'd kill to see live. Until that day comes, I suggest you lock your-

self in a disheveled room (mental or physical) and tear the hair out of a couple of voodoo dolls. Yes Polly — your voodoo is working, and how! BRONWYN TRUDGEON I LITTLE AXE The House That Wolf Built (On U Sound) Former Sugarhill and Tackhead guitarist Skip McDonald meets the blues, but I bet it’s not what Leadbelly had in mind. The House That Wolf Built is a musical melting pot, filtered through the awesome On U Sound machine. It’s like Tackhead without the crunching rhythms and heavy metal guitars. It’s like Eric Clapton discovered the rhythm in blues and the 90s all at the same time. It’s like... it’s like... it’s really hard to describe Little Axe. ‘Another Sinful Day’ is about the closest they get to traditional blues, yet dem blues haunt the album. ‘Wolf’s Story’ pretty much sums up the feeling conjured up by McDonald, who has been co-producing and remixing for On U for the past few years. Little Axe is the kind of music you can put on at the start of a car journey in the middle of the night. Three hours later, you arrive and don’t even realise the time has gone. Listen to the compelling rhythm of ‘Ride On’, the first single, and let Little Axe’s haunting hard rhythms and atmospheric samples subvert your mind. ‘Wake the town and tell the people about the king of sound and blues / Each sound around you carries you deeper, and deeper and sounder.’ MARK REVINGTON I ALT Altitude (EMI) Alt is German for ‘old’ which is a fairly accurate depiction of ALT'S members — Tim Finn, Hothouse Flower Liam O’Maonlai and unknown Dublin victim Andy White. This is one of those part-time, hopefully one-off, band relationships that stars occasionally indulge in through chance encounters or fiscal incentives. In keeping with the rather informal nature of the band Altitude is an album of relaxed bonhomie and half-realised songs and ideas. There’s the kernel of substantial songs in ‘The Refuge Tree’ and ‘What You've Done’. Even the throwaway, loose party feel of ‘We’re All Men’ and ‘Penelope Tree’ can’t totally disguise there's some charm lurking in there. The rest is either pretty tardy, like ‘When the Winter

Comes' and ‘I Decided To Fly’, or just plain maudlin and lacking in the commitment and conviction needed to justify making this record. The only good news is it could have been worse. . GEORGE KAY IVAN HALEN Balance (Warner) Another No. 1 album in the States for Van Halen, and it’s a bunch of new songs that continue their trademark big rock sound with a few surprises thrown in. Different offerings like ‘Strung Out’, which is Eddie getting some crazy sounds out of his piano, plus two other instrumentals, add a different touch to the expected formula. Another change is Eddie’s short hair and beard, giving him a true Dutchman look. Mainly though, it’s the guys rocking out and having a good time in ‘Amsterdam’ (‘Stone you like nothing else can / Don’t have to worry about the man’) and ‘Big Fat Money’ which is basically a 90s version of the old Bradford/Gordy rock ’n’ roll number. The standout tracks are definitely ‘The Seventh Seal’, ‘Don’t Tell Me’ and ‘Feelin”, which all contain brilliant playing from the Van Halen brothers, and the band as a whole demonstrate how powerful and tight-knit they are as a unit. Hagar is more prominent this time too, with two tunes (‘Deja Vu’ and the cheesy ‘Can’t Stop Loving You’) sounding straight out of the Sammy songbook. He’s now been in Van Halen for longer than David Lee Roth was, so we can probably rule out any return to the diamond days when their albums rated 10 out of 10. Balance would get somewhere around six and a half, which is still high enough to buy. GEOFF DUNN VARIOUS ARTISTS Collision 3 (Mushroom) VARIOUS ARTISTS Red, Hot and Cool (BMG) VARIOUS ARTISTS Red, Hot on Impulse (BMG) Well, another Collision compilation. Exactly the same as the last two, only different songs. What else do you need to know? Erm, 20 tracks. Spot of Brit rock (Primal Scream), spot of hip-hop (Coolio), spot of Mozz, Grant Lee Buffalo. Weezer’s one wonderful hit. Even the 3Ds and Head Like A Hole (yay!). Being an Australian comp’, there are lots of

Ozzy bands pretending to be important like Barker and Ash(!?). It’s your very own Australian, alternative radio playlist. . , - The next two chapters in the AIDS awareness compilations are also among us. First up, picking up on the jazzy hip-hop flavour, is Red Hot and Cool. It opens with its worst song, ‘Time Is Moving On (live)’, which has Guru doing all this live toss like “Come on y'all turn it up”. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It gets a bit better as MC Solaar does his thing, then Michael Franti sneaks in ‘Positive’ off the latest Spearhead album (not all that jazzy, but it’s a great song). Some of the rapper meets jazzster team ups are amazing: MeShelle’s bad Gurrrl blues and Herbie Hancock’s piano mastery (phew); the Roots with the floating vibes of Roy Ayers (wow). There’s UFO, Digable Planets, Pharcyde, US3. This is the jazzy hip hop album of the moment. Knievil listening. Red Hot and Cool even gives you a bonus CD of Branford Marsalis doing Coltrane’s ‘A Love Supreme’ and Alice Coltrane’s trippy hippy version. Both of which are a taster of the companion jazz album, Red Hot On Impulse. Basically, Impulse records have capitalised on all the sampling on Red Hot and Cool, just as Blue Note did with US3’s album - they’ve re ; released the original songs that were sampled. There’s lots of Pharoah - “don’t call me the Colonel” Sanders’ solo spiritual (well, hippy) jazz. There are the highlights of Alice Coltrane's career (as well as John’s ‘Love Supreme’). There's the bass brilliance of Charles Mingus? the rolling be bop drumming of Max Roach, all sorts. ’ ‘" I wouldn’t recommend grabbing it just ‘.cause you’re into Red Hot and Cool, but it’s certainly got all the magic of the Impulse label for the enthusiasts. JOHN TAITE I HELLO SAILOR The Album (EMI) ’ The ignoramuses really come out of the woodwork when you mention the new Hello Sailor album. Two out of three people feel they have the right to creatively dismiss a musician or a band just ‘cause they’re over 40. The bottom line though, is the necessity for good songs and. great vocals, and The Album has both. Graham Brazier has a superb rock voice — it’s strong .and powerful, and he carries a melody brilliantly. Song wise, The Album is notable for .the. lack of Brazier/McArtney com-

positons (due to the two songwriters residing in different continents), but both have delivered several impressive tunes. The Brazz is definitely on the rock tip, coming up with the ballsy ‘New Tattoo’, the wonderful whiteboy reggae of ‘G.M.T.’ and ‘Million $ Hand’, a swinging ode to harder times. That said, he really shines on two lighter numbers. The Album's finest track ‘Easy (The Last Procession)’ is a partner to McArtney’s ‘l’m In Heaven', from Shipshape And Bristol Fashion, and sees Brazier requesting an easy ride when his time’s up, and the folky ‘Bush By Where You Live’ is his best love song yet. Dave McArtney’s ‘Never Fade Away’ reads like a Sailor autobiography, while both ‘Dolly’ and ‘Nothing Void’ are beautiful pop gems. The Album may be an easy one for idiots to knock, but Hello Sailor have the last laugh — they’re the ones who know what rock ’n’ roll is all about. JOHN RUSSELL I ROYAL TRUX Thank You (Virgin) Neil Haggerty used to be in Pussy Galore. His partner Jennifer Harrema wasn’t. Now, with a few extra musicians playing things like drums and bass, they are Royal Trux. These cooler than anything cool peoples hail from New York (of course) and Thank You is their debut on a major label (Virgin). This album is just a little bit easier to swallow than their last 10-fi, drug induced efforts (Twin Infinitives ‘9O, Royal Trux ‘92, Cats and Dogs ‘93) — having said that, sometimes it's nice not to swallow isn’t it. Although Neil and Jennifer now appear to have kicked the junk, that doesn’t mean

they’ve turned into a modern day Richard and Karen — their music still feels kinda dirty and fun. The guitars get pulled and twanged by a nonchalant Neil. Jennifer’s voice strains and breaks over the sometimes Stones-like grooves, always accompanied by Neil, who sounds like he’s stuck down a tunnel in the background on the opening track, ‘A Night To Remember’. They both smoke a lot of cigarettes.

This is lazy, uncouth music, which also has it’s fair share of lotsa good grooves, nice singalong hooks! (like ‘Ray.O.Vac’ —just about the whole song consists of the words ‘gotta build your rock on the Ray.O.Vac’, umm, yeah, okay), and some not so nice. I imagine Thank You to be a nice album to put on after a night on the turps. You could lie on your bed and nicely nod off to the music, occasionally mumbling along drunkenly to the words in a riduculous manner. Yeah, anyway... I’m having trouble making out any of the lyrics at this early stage, but in ‘Map Of The City’ I think Neil is trying to express some thoughts on love — he mentions looking at himself in the shower, and loving a woman, even when she has ‘rotten cancer breath’. Charmed, I’m sure.

The songs are very consistent. They all have the same feel, which doesn’t mean you get sick of it, but you have time to get warmed up and get into them. This is a good thing. John, my fellow worker thinks they sound like ‘any pub rock band’, and also like ‘any band that plays at the Papakura Roadhouse’. He’s talking shit but, really, they do play kinda... just plain old rock music, except it doesn’t rawk in the traditional sense. But, with any sort of music, you’ve gotta feel like you can maybe make some sorta connection with the people

making the music, via the music. Of course we wouldn’t like this music if Extreme or Crash Test Dummies did it because they’re dorks. And they couldn’t do it anyway. I like this. That’s all. Thank You. SHIRLEY CHARLES I HEADLOCK It Found Me (Pavement) Headlock’s It Found Me is very good. The people in Headlock must be very nice people to make such a nice album, not that It Found Me is sissy cos it’s not... I don’t think any girls would like it, they can listen to Nirvana or morrissey and other yukky, wimpy stuff anyway. Sometimes mum has to sedate me aftter I’ve been listening to Headlock coz it’s the sort of music that can make you really mad. Yesterday after drinking a litre of thriftee and listening to Headlock I killed Yellow ted and was about to disembowel squiddly Diddly before mum found me and said any more outbreaks of this sort would lead to no sounds. A long time ago Headlock used to open for Biohazard and they’re certainly from the same school (not my school nyAAAAh) but a little wimpier (I’m not allowed to listen to Biohazard till I’ve grown up more) but not much wimpier. The sound is not quite as dense and full as Biohazards instead it’s sounds like Pantera circa ‘cowboys from hell’. This is my most favourite type of music ever, the drums bash and double kick (Really tricky to do without falling over) the guitars go real fast and then play huge lumbering chords and the singer sounds like someones stolen his jelly sandwiches. If anyone ever takes Headlock off me I swear on the bible I’m gonna hold my breath till, I die. KEVIN LIST (Age six and a half.) I BIG AUDIO Higher Power (Columbia) After The Globe’s menacing use of samples and superior tunes, it was expected that Mick Jones and Big Audio were cooking up something really potent in the overdue Higher Power. Not so, ‘cause this is a tame, overly catchy series of songs linked by irrelevant, irritating samples, that fail to add either atmosphere or presence to the album. Titles like ‘Harrow Road' and ‘Modern Stoneage Blues’ promise fear, loathing and rock ’n’ roll muscle, but they're merely pleasant, lightweight, Jones-fronted dance hops. This is Jones’ weakest post-Clash statement. GEORGE KAY ISKATENIGS What A Mangled Web We Weave (Red Light Records/Festival) Howdy pardners. I got a little bitty tale to tell y’all ‘bout an album called What A Mangled Web We Weave, by some varmints called the Skatenigs. These crazy critters don't play to no Christian god, no siree, they kneel before the god of industro-metal. Now, I ain’t a bible bashing man, but I reckons that the keyboard and

the sampler do be the devil’s work. Take Flock of Seagulls, for instance... what the jumping jehosaphats... Sorry for this readers, but we here at No Bullshit Reviews have taken Old Tex out back and lynched him, as a warning to all who would use a meagre knowledge of the western to write a review of anything that comes from Texas... back to the review in a far more sensible manner. What A Mangled Web We Weave is exactly 34 minutes and 20 seconds long. The vocals are masculine and agressive. The agression of the vocals is matched by the lyrics, eg.: ‘I love my gun / I love my bike / I’d rather ride than self destruct.’ These unhealthily phallocentric lyrics are taken from ‘Regret’, and are an example of the heterosexist lyrics that dominate the album. Regretfully, ‘Regret’ is the highlight of the album, most songs becoming dull and repetitive after repeated listenings. Ministry fans should enjoy the Skatenigs with their tolerance for dull, repetitive bands fronted by people who think they’re cowboys. No Bullshit rating: 5/10. Be seein’ y’all. KEVIN LIST ALAN VEGA New Racieon (Infinite Zero) GANG OF FOUR Entertainment! (Infinite Zero) This is a re-release that promised to deliver and actually has. Here you have a pair of very wonderful releases. Entertainment! in particular is a really great and powerful chunk of our rock culture. Amazingly, four tea-drinking commies from Leeds produced some very incisive and accessible work, both lyrically and musically. As a band, the Gang of Four were streets ahead of everyone. They had both ways — from a straight rock perspective there was a serious machine of a rhythm section, behind an inventive guitarist and vocalist who could keep pace with everyone else. At the same time, this crew could take it all a step further — Dave Allen and Hugho Burnham were comfortable sliding around funk and reggae rhythms, and still sounding very dour and minimal, while Andy Gill’s guitar playing would sail off on tangents today’s noisemeisters can only marvel at. Rage Against the Machine and the Chili Peppers should hang their heads in shame. It’s impossible to pick a few songs as examples of this band's art, simply because every song is so damn good and better yet, they all sound really clean on this reissue although I don’t think its been remastered. Probably one of the best purchases you could make all year. Next up is Alan Vega’s most recent solo deal, New Raceion. For those of you familiar with the might that was Suicide, no further reccomendation is needed. If not, then this is Vega’s solo continuation of some groundbreaking and twisted music. Suicide were a duo who did some wild work, sort of a combination of drone music and techno, except no-one had invented that stuff yet. With New Raceion, Vega

keeps taking those themes just a little further on. Guitars, keyboards and a rhytm section combine to create some pretty siniter, driving sounds. It’s New Yorkers so cool you could store meat in them, doing what sounds like Kraftwerk fed POP and downers, except it’s better than that. Basically, if it was a perfect world, Depeche Mode, NiN and co. would be banished back to dayjobs as bank tellers and towel boys at the local Turkish baths, while albums like this would be beating fans off with a stick. KIRK GEE BOXCAR Algorhythm (Volition) SEVERED HEADS Gigapus (Volition) SINGLE GUN THEORY Flow, River of My Soul (Volition) FALLING JOYS Aerial (Volition) Four glimpses of the Aussie alternative/independent scene begins with the lightweight techno aerobics of Sydney’s Boxcar. Algorhythm is 12 tracks of electronic confectionary with ‘Spirit’ and ‘Dust’ being the most impressive since they’re the closest vocalist Brett Mitchell can sound to New Order’s Barney Sumner (and he’s pretty damned close). Pleasantly hyperactive and ideal for testing the lycra, but don’t expect innovation or exploration. According to the usual hyped up bio, Severed Heads’ pivotal member, Tom Ellard, is generally recognised as one of the pioneers of techno. He’s sure been working at it long enough, as he formed the band in 1979 and Gigapus is something like his tenth album. He covers all

the reference points, from the bounding elec-tro-pop of ‘Heart of the Party’ to more menacing fare like ‘Arrivederci Coma’, with his most effective extensions being the ambient explosions of the last four tracks. Not a leader in the genre, contrary to company claims, but a very fine exponent. Sydney trio, Single Gun Theory, are still under the Indian/South East Asian influence that pervaded their last album, 1991’s Like Stars In My Hands. The OE travel influences aren’t quite so dominant on Flow, River Of My Soul, but they try to conjure up an exotic brew of samples, the odd eastern chant and floating melodies carried by Jacqui Hunt’s vocals in the obligatory gossamer production. Soothing, seductive, yet incredibly boring. That leaves stalwarts Falling Joys, who apparently nabbed the No. 1 Independent Act at the Australian Music Awards. That’s the least they deserve as Suzie Higgle proves on this, their third album, that she’s developed into an acute and intelligent writer with the ability to combine her sensitivities into memorable, melodic pop songs. As a band, Falling Joys have gradually moved from the harder rock phases of patrons like Concrete Blonde, to the more left-field, stylish pop of Throwing Muses, Belly et al. Stuff like ‘Fiesta’, ‘Calendar Blues’ and ‘XYZ’ prove that Aerial is an album from a band that deserves bigger plaudits than an Australain Music Award. GEORGE KAY ■ ADRENALIN Open Your Eyes (Adrenalin Music) Adrenalin’s debut kicks off with a track that was apparently a favourite in the bFM office earlier this year, the righteous ballad ‘Delightful Lady'. Second up is the cheeky blues rock of ‘Moving Forward’, and the remainder of the

album falls somewhere between these two extremes.

In today's musical climate, Adrenalin would be, without a doubt, considered old-fashioned, but who cares? They know what they like. Open Your Eyes was recorded at Mountain Studios with Phil Rudd behind the desk, and the band couldn’t have wished for anyone better. The production is crisp and punchy, with the melody-heavy vocals out front. Tracks like ‘NZ Green’, ‘Sweet Cherry’ and ‘Open Your Eyes’ represent the more hard rock/blues side of Adrenalin, but they’re more than capable of producing the goods on head-down pop songs like ‘Twister’, and the traditional-style power ballads ‘Falling Down' and ‘Crystal Clear’. Adrenalin aren’t breaking any new ground, and they wear their influences like medals, but Open Your Eyes hold its own in its genre. JOHN RUSSELL I WAYNE KRAMER The Hard Stuff (Epitaph) Ladies and Gentlemen, Brother Wayne Kramer is back, and he is ready to show all you youngsters how to Rock (capital R intended). After all, he served his time in the mighty MCS who, although they aren’t the originators of all hard rock (as many grunge and journo types would have us believe), did manage to put out a couple of albums that blow most contenders out of the water. After a 12 year silence, Mr Kramer is back, and showing no signs of softening up. Epitaph gave him a selection of its young punk guns to provide backing, and they handle the job admirably. Otherwise non-event-ful acts like Clawhammer lay down the goods here, while Mr Kramer deals out his (mostly) utilitarian guitar work — a little wild and dirty but pretty much all meat and no filler. There are a few meandering moments, yet the album never loses the thread and turns dull. The Hard Stuff is proof positive that some people can find that X factor and keep it functioning no matter what. KIRK GEE | SPIRITUALISED Pure Phase There are gimmicks to Spiritualised. Recently they’ve changed their name to Spiritualised Electric Mainline. Uh-huh. Sounds a bit too much like Electric Light Orchestra to me. And this CD cover, well, elaborate, a glow-in-the-dark square tomb (meaning they’re impressive night listening and average daytime listening?).

Jason Pierce formed the group when Spaceman 3 split (and they don’t sound all that dissimilar). Then Laser Guided Melodies made critics drool at their keyboards in 92, and now this. Not so many melodies. It’s more numb. Remember ‘Run’ from their debut? Sounded like wading through porridge with your eyes shut. Spiritualised are a womb. A cocoon. Their electric storms remain in the distance, barely audible as Jase gives us some iron lung assisted R&B warbles. That is apart from ‘Electric Phase’, which gives us some metal machine music. Then they hypnotically float back into ‘All of My Tears' which sonically throbs and whimpers while violins weep. Right now they're like the elaborate orchestral big brother of Verve. Isolated. Unaware of the external. Bewildered. And without much charting potential anywhere outside of England. JOHN TAITE DODGY Homegrown (A&M) DEUS Worst Case Scenario (Island) Two contrasting but ultimately satisfying perspectives on what constitutes thrilling pop music introduced Dodgy — an English threepiece totally smitten with the idea pop should be joyous, tuneful and largely fuelled by Beatles influences. Homegrown, their second album, is a more cohesive and consistent refinement of the unaffected and timeless hooks and harmonies that graced their eponymously titled debut The Dodgy Album. There’s a soaring, melodic opening, in ‘Staying Out For The Summer’, that’s complicated perfection, with the self-explanatory ‘Melodies Haunt You’ and the big, Beatlesque ‘Grassman’ being other random representatives from an album that’s a flawess exposition of how good classic pop music can be. Belgian five piece Deus approach from a diffrent angle, but their aim to thrill is nearly as true. Their nagging, disruptive but often soothing experimentalism fluctuates through these 14 songs, with their single, ‘Suds and Soda’, providing an early indication they’re going to be difficult bastards, and the better for it. Visions of Waits, Beefheart and Pere Übu lurk in the background, with more recent glimpses of My Bloody Valentine and the 800 Radleys making an appearance. Yet this is Deus’s showcase, a coherant and challenging stab at avant garde pop.

GEORGE KAY