MORE ALBUMS

Rip It Up, Issue 247, 1 March 1998, Page 26

MORE ALBUMS

MUCKHOLE Fresh Muck (Muck Industries) While punk has been blurring into a weak approximation of poppy ska on the US West Coast, and East Coast hardcore has been busy fusing with heavy metal, the year since their debut Kooza has seen local lads Muckhole stay resolutely individual, toning their taut and muscled rhythms, sharpening their hooks, and investing their new songs with an emotional intensity to match the sonic impact. : Superbly played (very quickly, of course) and nicely produced, Fresh Muck is still less immediate than their previous stuff, but it's a harder record with deeper euphony and subtext, and a particular sting in the lyrical barbs. On ‘Broken Record’, the hypocrisy of punker-than-thou purists is addressed; ‘Show me the difference between BMG and Adidas...’, sings Sean O’Brien to those who bristled at Muckhole’s

major label distribution while adhering to designer punk fashion; ‘Burning Crosses’ strikes a blow against redneck racism; and ‘Bloodlet’ deals to somebody’s emotionally abusive former lover.

Muckhole have made an excellent album that, right down to the sleeve art, is as relevant locally as any more self-consciously ‘New Zild’ act, and will probably have an across the board appeal to fans of fast music everywhere. TROY FERGUSON KRISTINHERSH Strange Angels (4AD) Kristin Hersh’s first solo album, 1994’s Hips and Makers, found her stepping out temporarily from her day job as the driving force behind indie-rock legends, Throwing Muses. But Sirange Angels marks a more permanent excursion, for the Muses are no more — a victim of mass market indifference and negligible sales, despite years of critical acclaim. If the ‘strange angels’ of the

title are the ghosts of her former band, Hersh shows no signs of running scared from them. Indeed Strange Angels is a remarkably assured album, trading as it does the desperate edge of Hips and Makers for something noticeably more measured and composed. It’s as if Hersh has found an eye of serenity within her own personal musical maelstrom — a place from which the demons of the past have been successfully exorcised, and an air of upbeat calm pervades. Yet, Strange Angels remains unequivocally a Kristin Hersh album — it's full of the evocative lyricism, off-kilter melodies and lush, almost orchestral soundscapes with which she has made her name. There are countless small moments to savour here, all magically weaving themselves into a seamless, sumptuous whole. As they say, God is in the details. and indie-Goddess Hersh understands this like few others. MARTIN BELL FU MANCHU The Action Is Go : (Mammoth) It's been floating around on import for a few months now, and now the fourth album from valvescorching fuzz abusers Fu Manchu gets a local release — with ‘two additional tracks not found on the USA version. Taking up where the Godzilla EP left off last year, the reshuffled band (exKyuss stickman Brant Bjork and brand new lead guitarist Bob Balch join stalwarts Scott Hill and Brad Davis) ride a rougher terrain than the groovily wasted area that connected Daredevil and In Search Of. The 70s sensibilities still reverb through the songs loud and (un)clear, but this time out the pace is often faster, postures meaner and attitude more (gasp!) punk rock — check out the growl of ‘Evil Eye’, and the gritty ‘Laserblast!’. But these Fu fighters also lazily extend their scope, basking in the exhaust fumes of space rock with ‘Module Overload’, and getting spun out by the hallucinogen haze of ‘Grendel, Snowman’. - : So, as luddite as they seem, The Action Is Go is their most innovative album yet — and, most importantly, it signals a return of the theremin to the rock album. Alright! TROY FERGUSON

THE CHARLATANS Melting Pot (Beggars Banquet)

The Charlatans leave Beggars Banquet (hello MCA) with a cracking 17 song, 75 minutes, greatest bits and pieces selected by the band themselves. Whereas most retrospectives suffer from the inconsistencies that B-sides, experimentations, and duff singles have to offer, Melting Pot shows how they’ve developed their seamless boss grooves, from the initial breathtaking flourish of ‘The Only One | Know’ to ‘One To Another’, and ‘North Country Boy’ from last year’s Tellin’ Stories album.

The eponymous debut album from the Stone Roses in 1989 and the Charlatans’ single ‘The Only One | Know’ the following year (with its equally mighty flipside, “Everything Changed”, its omission the only small flaw here), seemed to usher in new possibilities for British rock ‘n’ roll after the post-Smiths’ depression. Since then, their persistence and loyal adherence to the rhythmic and keyboard undertow of Booker T, the Meters, and even

Deep Purple’s version of Joe South’s ‘Hush’, have led to the Charlatans being the premier exponents of Britfunk. Proof of that status in the last eight years has been witnessed by ‘Weirdo’, and its staunch USA version Bside ‘Sproston Green’ and ‘Jesus

Hairdo’, and the theme from ‘The Wish’ and the Chemical Brothers (when they were the Dust Bros) re-mix of ‘Patrol’. They're all here, and more, in a comprehensive beginner's guide to the real Charlatans. GEORGE KAY REGURGITATOR Unit (East West These Australian masters of dumb ‘n’ base irony have never done as well in this country as they perhaps deserve, but nor have any of their past releases been as solidly entertaining as Unit, saturated as it is in 80s synth technology, vocoder, and a defiantly anti-postmodern perceptiveness. Full of engaging tunes with new wave and rock rhythms, Regurgitator deal with material that in the hands of lessers may be trite or gimmicky, but which they pull off admirably (no pun intended). ~ After the opener anticipates the audience’s reaction — ‘| Like Your Old Stuff Better Than Your New Stuff’, the subject matter covers such concerns as toilets (‘I Piss Alone’ and ‘Everyday Formula’), agrophobia (‘The Song Formerly Known As !') and video games (‘Black Bugs’). But most fun is had with ‘The World Of Sleaze’, which contains the catchiest chorus you'll never, ever hear on the radio, and the mock, old school rap boasts of the

delightfully-titled ‘I Will Lick Your Arsehole’.

By going out on a limb with the retro-synthpop of Unit, Regurgitator are revealed as being more inventively challenging — and giving less of a shit — than anybody could have previously thought. TROY FERGUSON lAN BROWN : Unfinished Monkey Business (Polydor) It took the Stone Roses five years to follow up their first album, yet in the past year Mani has been involved in Primal Scream releases, Squire has been prolific with the Seahorses, and now Brown issues his response to the decline and fall of the band who kick-started this decade’s British rock ‘n’ roll revival.

In their lifetime, the Stone Roses became deities, and so their demise was very much a public disintegration. The Seahorses album was a grandstand for Squire’s guitar playing, so he left the acrimony of the Roses split pretty much alone. Brown doesn’t. The title itself could allude to the band’s messy ending, and while the songs aren’t exactly blood on the tracks, there’s an undercurrent of bitterness in some of them that gives the album an undeniable edge.

Assembled and recorded in a low key, do-it-yourself fashion, there are unmistakable signs of Brown’s musical past in the Stone Roses funk of ‘Can’t See Me’ and in the later thick psychedelic chords of ‘What Happened To Ya Part 2’. Squire bashing gets aired on ‘lce Cold Cube’ and in the title track, and is developed in the pointed, plaintive ‘What Happened To Ya Part I°, where Brown appeals ‘Extended vision, distorted dreams/All based on image, it's not all that it seems.’ And who knows what was in his mind when he wrote the haunting, ‘Corpses in Their Mouths’. Brown has gone on to claim that the songs aren’t aimed at anyone specific, but it’s hard to take that comment at face value. There’s been a monkey on his back, and ironically, this album is all the more powerful and memorableforit.. - ;

GEORGE KAY