RECORD REVIEWS MUSIC
Excessive length. though. is an unfortunate syndrome of the CD age. (Kenny Mathieson)
volume while you're trying to play darts. This album is for them. The fat boy's back with Jim Steinman for another ten epic excursions into the realms of operatic metal balladry that match the scope and ambition of the original. Trouble is. fifteen years have elapsed since Bur shifted the first of its 25 million copies and Wagneric melodrama has a distinctly shorter shelf-life these days. Ten
Flipper (lief American) tinged by the bare folk Quake in terror, ye acoustics of her sometime mortals. for Flipper roam - stage persona. yet come the earth once more. Way wrapped in edgy drama. E back when Bn'tish punk - The title track flies by in a I Benjamin Law: to had sunk to its ‘Fuck a flurry of furious . Parfum Du flaki (Made To mod‘ nadir, the US variety strumming. ‘Sabrtna‘ has Measure) ‘Eerie. alien and was just getting into its Latin flourishes. ‘Ghost slightly literary . . . stride with bands like Of A Chance" is skeletal reminiscent of Marguerite Black Flag and this lot. Joan Armntradtnf. And Duras‘ earlv novels.‘ Flipper played _ the whole thing is a fine Well. hold ine back! if cac0phonous. exhausting showcase for Fjaere‘s that‘s the kind of line hardcore. but unlike their : meld 0fcrafted and Made To Measure are peers played it real slow instinctive poetic using to promote and real loose. ridiculing songwriting. (Craig
I Flipper: Generic 1 These six songs are still I i
Benjamin Lew‘s records. the punk orthdoxy. MCl-Can) minute whinges like 1 it‘s no wonder he hasn‘t Splitting in l987 after the ' 'Ohjects In The Rear 5 been seen at the same death of their bassist. Will I Meatloaf: Bat Out Of View Mirror May Appear i parties as Billy Sloan and Shatter. Flipper have flail ll: Back Into lie". I Closer Than They Are‘
returned with a new
album. American
Gratis/1y. but Generic Flipper. their 1982 I tnasterpiece. is at long last available on CD. Evert in all its digital glory. it still sounds like sludge. But indomitable sludge.
Sludge that separates the wheat from the chaff.
Chris Novoselic of l Nirvana‘s famous recommendation (‘lt was a revelation. It was Art. It made me realise it was Art. it was valitl. it was beautiful‘) is all you really ' have to remember.
(Alastair Mabbott)
I Fiaere: Girlfriend (281) . Girlfriend is as much a i product of Fjaere‘s : character-building toil i round Edinburgh’s unforgiving pub circuit as it is of her fiery muse.
There‘s a pub in Leith Walk that insists on playing ‘l‘or Crying ()ut Loud‘ at ear-splitting
prove eminently dispensable. Music to miss double-top to. (Tom Lappin)
" Piers Morgan. However. his work has fallen into the hands of certain
ambient Dis who are easing Lew‘s electronic creations into their palette of sounds. Judging from this album. any inroads into the public consciousness would be over against a variety of well-deserved. Le Parftmt backgrounds and settings ; Du Ruki is light-years
for string quartet and 3 beyond most of what is various orchestral packaged as ‘ambient‘ combinations. culminating these days. To begin with. in a duet version with 5 it's music. For all its
Tom Waits supplyingy [he meditative fioatiness. poignant. eerily moving ’ second voice. and Waits's : LCW'S tunes are too
work tends to stretch the 1 mm coda. liarlier versions engaging to be sold as whole thing a little too far. ; were more cogent (albeit packaged atmosphere or. The piece is built around a l without Waits). but at 75 alternatively. :18 an recording of an old tramp minutes. it takes some accessory for pseudo- singing the eponymous stamina to get through this intellectuals. (Alastair hymn. looped over antl one in a single sitting. Mabbott)
Gavin Bryars
I Gavin Bryars: Jesus Blood Never Failed Me Yet (Point) One of the tnost unlikely of this year’s contenders for the Mercury Prize. this latest version of Bryars's
compilation (number one Meatloaf in a series of one. probably) dedicated to a randomly selected salesperson frotn their European office. Cue excuse for some faintly diverting sleevenotes and j ready-made cover concept. Intended to sweep away the grungey ' cobwebs still associated with the label. this album Tom occasionally attain. l (“Shes UP everything from but does so with halfthe { the girly vocalschiming forced angst. And that's gum“ angklph'lc
. titelotliotis pearls and
V sympathetic lyrical twists
: just tumble from the
mouth of Greg llumphreys. ‘C‘ollapsis' could have come off the last Superstar album; ‘Poor Poor Lonely" rocks with a pop mentality. like Batlfinger; ‘Safety Net‘ touches the simple melodic heights The Lemonheads and Buffalo
There is a breed of human being foreign to the music fan on the streets, but vital to the craft of the journalist: the press officer. In a diversion from our usual format, we dedicate this column to a king of that breed - the tireless Charlie Insitip - who, with trusty assistant Joolz, runs Real Time Promotions, home to every Ieft-of-centre, under-of-ground American group ever
CHUCK STE \WRT presents
not a random selection of ; Vel()‘{lly Girl 10 Big the best — that’s the first - cm“ 3 l‘lSl‘boncsquc four tracks on side one. lunkkalnc-‘S ‘0 the fun"
conceived, and who fires otf acres of vinyl with
I Dwarves: Sugariix (Sub ?
Pop) lt's advisable to tread
steam-ahead billycore wigout of the Reverend
warily with hands better 3 H0110" Heal.
unswerving commitment l renowned rm their l I Today Is The Day: and alarming regularity in ; doolally antics than their ' Supernova (Amphetamine our direction. Some of ? music, [Natives m such I Reptile)/Six Finger which we even listen to. a bunch or mm coves. 1 Satellite: The Pigeon ls 5 So here’s some Their latest and most I The Most Popular Bird Pamglaphs by Fiona perverse wheeze was a (SUI) Pop) Both as .¢ Shepherd about bands . fabrication ofthe death of effective a way of ' and records with silly l masked guitarist He Who j flushing out unwanted names. i Cannot Be Named neighbours as a vat of
(including an address to i piranhas on their doorstep I Dillon Fence: Outside send flowers. cards and or the permanent stench of
In (Mammoth) Various Glaswegian bands would kill to have produced this album of wall-to-wail infallible melodies of the old-fashioned 70s pop variety. Not so tnuch the obvious Big Star/Todd Rundgren enthusiasts from the Bellshili region. but any band striving to produce feel-good Faces numbers will hear this and weep. Nothing as shoddy as labour went into producing songs with the character of ‘Retnemher';
Eau De Sewage Plant. Choose between Today is The Day's fusion of wanky space prog and pointless earache hardcore and Six Finger Satellite’s idiot Version or Savant Version of their stuttering. incontinent bad trip Fire lingines type album. Alternatively. play them with your headphones on and push yourself to the brink of a iobotomy. Which might be a compliment for the two bands.
condolences) so elaborate that even their record
; cotnpany didn‘t twig.
' 'Twas a stunt infinitely more stimulating titan any revelation Sugar/ix aspires E to. be it hardcore. glamcore. garagecore or dumbcore. The Ramones. Nation of Ulysses and the MCS did it better chaps.
I Various: Lutz ii.
Mastmeyer: Sub Pop
Employee of the Month
(Sub Pop) Meanwhile. Sub
Pop hit back with their
own merry jape — a
+ SUPRORT
Sunday 26th September 1993
‘5 TICKETS AVAlLABLE FROM - (,- RtRRtNt3 RECORDS, VlNYL VlLLAlNS as THE RECORD SHAK, AVALANCHE
O
B
The List lt)—23-September_i993 33