• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

ILLUSTRATION: GRAHAM HUMPHRIES LONG P L A T EDITED BY Keith Cameron PROFESSOR GRIFF— THE hits and Shawn is back on the XMINISTA shelf. How I'd love to inform Arista Disturb N Tha Peace thatthey have unwittingly and (MusidisdAII formats) posthumously sneaked out a THREE YEARS and as many dance crossover milestone that albums since being will catapult the Chicago excommunicated from Public songstress into the supreme diva Enemy's cathedral of sound andbracket. But unfortunately, fury. Griff still keeps the faith in 'Another Sleepless Night' — with subtle but significant ways. Both producer/main composer Mike his self-styled title — a pun on his'Hitman'Wilson getting nearly as former role as PE's "Minister of many big letter credits as Shawn, Information" — and the — plops smack in the middle of noise-salad construction of this,the desperate major label dance latest solo concoction ripple with mire, trying to seep into every ever diminishing echoes of past level but ending up bogged glory: crackling radio down somewhere round the interference, apocalyptic air-raid U-bend. atmospherics, language Between the ebullient melodic reshaped and subverted into house of the two singles there lyrical grenades lobbed from are various stabs at En Vogue moving vehicles. rap-pop, smooth ballads, More than ever, GBH of the swingbeat and disco — all earholes is Griff's intent. But the invariably polished to the point largely Old School ammunition of non-existence. Witness the he assembles is increasingly debuts of CeCe Peniston and Kym shoddy and second-hand, Sims last year perusing the same sacrif icing sense and clarity to blueprint. cheap melodrama and global But she has a great voice. So conspiracy theories which back to the underground with escalate beyond mere paranoia Shawn and let's hope it acts like a into science fiction. Nonsense trampoline.(5) slogans are his forte{"suckyou through into overweight Kris Needs reality') with vagueness and verbosity frequently THE CRANBERRIES masquerading as genuine rage. Everybody Else Is Doing It, The overall message? Allah is So Why Can't We? great, the Klan are nasty, racism (Island!All formats) is bad, diddly diddly dee. DELORES O'RJORDAN should not A dirtier, funkier edge prowls be confused with some gender beneath the in-your-face warrior, kicking and screaming bellowing of noteworthy for equal rights. Which doesn't interludes like 'God Bless mean she's a victim or a Amerikkka' or 'Blackdraft', simpering stereotype, just that suggesting Griff seeks to emulate the minutae of life interests her a the resurgence in gangsta rap lot more than power struggles, with this self-conscious stab at aand she uses The Cranberries as a rougher, street-level sound. vehicle to detail her f inely-honed Certainly the vat-grown observations on the vagaries of laboratory feel of much PE love. material has been stripped away, For her pains, the group but he lacks the sheer brutish continue to be perceived as simplicity or lyrical firepower to backwoods oiks from Limerick, compete with NW Aorthelce West Ireland, suffused with too men on their own turf. much innocence for their own If he would just cool out and good, and the long-awaited NW1 FROM THE HEART momentarily stem this debut LP goes only some of the loghorrea, we might be allowed way to dispel this. to savour a powerhouse rock-out For better or worse, The GALLON DRUNK Sadier on cool backing vox and producer Phil W right's strings of alleged anti-sexism called Cranberries exist in a timewarp and Hammond organ. Unlike many bands who, after exhausting 'Sista Sista' or the Terminator From The Heart Of Town(ClawfisUAll formats) of their own making where LONDON KILLS you. L iterally. H ealth studies n ow place the their initial set of tools mistakenly equate instrumental X-style scratch symphony 'Two sometimes jangling, only faintly Minute War .. .ning'. But his capita! o f this septic isle well towards the bottom of the profusion with progression. Gallon Drunk actually take on a new unconventional songs are European quality of life league, and as the dream of a politically stature from broadening their scope— doubtless because this empty rants keep rolling, stretched out on the rack of a potentially salient points buried unif ied Euro-state inches closer to fact it takes only an hour cornucopic or so worldview was lurking in their well-oiled genes all smooth production — complete on a N umber 36 bus to realise just how wide the social and along. beneath witless yap-yapping with occasionally excessive cultural gap still yawns. Next to Prague, Amsterdam, Hamburg It's James Johnston's vocals, however, that prove the greatest which obeys no logical guidelines ornamentation— with j ust and protects itself by dismissing sudden jarring blasts of guitar or Edinburgh, London more and more resembles a ramshackle revelation. Specifically, they're intelligible now, when in the all criticism as evil distortion, likeleft to disturb the tasteful, muted fop, addled on his fading memories of better days and heading past it's been debatable if the lad was actually bothering to in the self-explanatory 'Phuck backdrops. What separates thefor the gutter. w rite lyrics. As a consequence, a vivid n e w dim ension to G allon The Media'. 'Berries from the herd is the grain Gallon Drunk are on first name terms with the bloke. They've Drunk opens up, as Johnston tires of being merely the most Throughout this lumbering, of Delores' flighty voice— a followed him on his travels along the city's main arterial route—adept hiccuper in rock and decides that the debauched croon is unfocused sprawl of an album, signature instrument that the Northern Line, colour code: black, of course— from the much more his style. The opening 'Jake On The Make' might well however, the suspicion persists swoops, ducks and dives, or just guilty poor-man's sleaze of Soho, up to Camden and its tattybe a blast of self-referential fantasy"Peeling — notes off his th a t- like most people who talk snuggles up close to the Bohemia, before staggering o ff to whatever perimeter bedsitroll!And the alcohol's taking its tolllAndhe is a sight to behold" too much— the Minister of speakers, stretching vowels andhell constitutes home this week. All along the way, they've —kept and if so the massed organ stomp-track clinches the Disinformation has phuck all ofconsonants, investing a line like interest to say. (6) the drinks coming and lent a sympathetic ear to the old sot,neon-dazzled scene, a sort of Camdenised 'Hey Big Spender'. "if only you could see beyond soaking in the salient details of this saddest of hard-luck talesWhether in out of boredom w ith their former selves or simply Stephen Dalton your nose" with all the gravity of preparation for one day telling their side of the story. And thisthe is disposal of greater resources. Gallon Drunk are now far less Dostoyevsky. it: 'From The Heart Of Town', a stunning Cinemascope vision ofinclined a to adopt the kitchen sink approach to orchestration. Possibly due to the almost city in terminal decay. Rarely has squalor sounded so sublime.Lyrically, 'Keep Moving On' is a poisonous farewell to a former endearing conservatism of the The Drunks find both repulsion and rapture in the group, they manage to craft acquaintance ("Yleft ou the old place smelling stalelGood SHAWN CHRISTOPHER low-lifeforms they've documented w ith such verve for the pastriddance to bad rubbish") but coyly built around a plangent Another Sleepless Night heartfelt, straight-talking songs with no hidden metaphors or three or so years, but now for the first time those outside the GDpiano theme that momentarily ducks out to usher through a {Arista!All formats) double meanings (unless you inner sanctum can see what they've been getting at. While surprise the dissonant blast. 'You Should Be Ashamed' is a HERE'S Afunny thing: Arista search real hard). The assertive previous tw o albums really worked only as companions to thefinger-clicking marvel, as James ef femmes swap cocktail finally get round to releasing the'Still Can't' and the super-catchy band's vicious live shows— nostalgic reminders of a great nightharmonies and Edwards pops byfor a nimble sax break. Perhaps Shawn Christopher album, and 'Dreams' make for fine contrast out but not essential documents in their own right— 'From Thebest of all is the fully-fledged groove monument 'Push The Boat while in certain quarters of the to the emotional nakedness H eart.. / is an aural treat, revealing these smoothly kitted-out O uf, where James stands astride a sinful Mike Delanian bassriff dance community the term displayed on the big-ballad 'I Willflakes to be artful manipulators of time-warped noise. Verily, and it's proceeds to lash the metaphorical lariat 'til the neighbours 'long-awaited' will be bandied Always', the defiant 'Not Sorry' the Gallon Drunk record you can listen to all the way through get stroppy. Follow that, is its impossibly rhetorical demand— about, here'sthe rub— she hasand the stormy acrobatics of w ith o u t checking to see if th e stylus is buggered. already been dropped from the the only way out after this is 'Paying For Pleasure', a hangover 'Waltzing Black'. It's also by no means necessary to have completed a tour of roster. reverie for banjo and broken heart. If these were less austere, moreNorth London's premier ale-houses in order to get the gist. Thus, Gallon Drunk's lasting achievement lies in how they've cast This indignity follows a settled times, The Cranberries sporadic relationship which has although those w ith the requisite local savvy w ill recognise back the to the pre-rock era, magnified those optimistic years into would have accounted for a so-called"Temperance House"outside of which 'Arlington high melodrama and shot through a multitude of genres w ith seen long periods pass between completely valid LP.

Load more

  2

Copy Link