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Track List: 1. Shitbag 9 2. Bring Your Lovin' Back Here 3. Emergency Surgery 4. Hit On The Head 5. Flavors 6. 78 Stone Shuffle 7. We Haven't Turned Around [X-Ray Mix] 8. Buena Vista 9. Shitbag 10. Steve McCroski 11. Wharf Me 12. High On Liquid Skin 13. Rosemary 14. The Cowboy Song 15. Getting Better Running time: 49 minutes Released: 2000 |
The first thing I note looking down the track list is more profanity in titles; at least it is just profanity this time. Not clever but not mean spirited or offensive to me.
I remember hearing Gomez first on Later... around the time of the Mercury nod for their debut (the Mercury Prize will crop up a few times as a discovery point) and finding their evolution of Britpop more palatable than what had come before. This album, a couple of years later, was a collection of unreleased material, live recordings and B-sides from their early life. It is, therefore, quite hit and miss - more-so than albums tend to be anyway,
The opener is just an intro, then we get into an upbeat number that seems to me to be pretty typical of their more radio-friendly songs. Emergency Surgery, however, completely changes the tone (not in a good way in my book). Sparse sounds and an oddly delivered vocal line. It is an interesting combination, but not a song to really listen to. Hit On the Head continues that theme, but with a different vocalist. That's actually one of the things I liked about Gomez when I got into them, different singers for different songs (or parts of songs) because that was worked for the track.
Flavours is a hybrid of the style introduced with Emergency Surgery and the more established guitar-based sound. I actually really like this track because it shifts that latter point enough to create interest without going too far down the former route to lose musicality. It is not groundbreaking, just a good mixture of styles.
78 Stone Wobble from Bring It On was the first Gomez song I remember hearing. I thought, at the time, that the live version here (titled 78 Stone Shuffle) instead is a superior track. Not sure whether this is just the live rendition or if there was more to it than that. However on this listen, I find myself tiring of the track pretty quickly and I cannot quite put my finger on why. I would rather it did not give way as it did though; this mix of We Haven't Turned Around I find very poor. I think that song was my favourite on Liquid Skin but the rendition here has none of the charm or easy sounds. Musically it is... challenging for my ears, and I find the vocal a lot harsher and less appropriate as a result. It is, however, much shorter. Thankfully.
So I am doing this listen as I waffle on whether to get outside and do some gardening. It looks a nice day, but I am fighting the great beast of "cannot be a***d" after what was a very busy week. I thought this would be a nice distraction.
At points it is. Buena Vista is my favourite Gomez song despite the length (I seem to be contradicting my stated preference a lot, eh?). The build, the song and the bluesy orchestration all work for me, there are echoes of Floyd in some of the playing in the first half and I find it a very easy listen. It could easily finish on a good length, but unlike some songs where the continuation feels like a bridge (or chorus) too far, the long lead out on this track feels appropriate. It helps that it is similar enough to feel at home with the opening, but different enough to sound like a change. Listening now, I think it has strands of The Stone Roses about it. The outro is too long though. The song should wind up at about the 7 minute mark, but there is still 2 minutes of less interesting wind-down to go. Yes, it is another change of tone, but it is so evidently lead-out that it may as well not be there. It does not destroy my love of the earlier part of the song though.
Unfortunately the rest of the album is very much less interesting. Shitbag actually crams a lot into its 1 minute run time, especially given the vocal does not start for 25 seconds or so; it is more pleasant than the name, but not of real interest. Steve McCroski is unpleasant, Wharf Me is too sparse for most of the track - only bursting into life sporadically. High On Liquid Skin could be interesting by construction, but frankly I find the actual musical lines uninteresting; what goes where has me paying attention but what I pick up makes me yawn. I was all set to be disparaging about Rosemary too - saying it was too slow, but I was allowing my fingers to get ahead of my ears and my memory to inform. Listening I find that my memory is a harsh critic - the tempo of the verse is fine; the vocal in the chorus could be a bit more lively though, and there is an extra minute of outro on the track that would be better excised.
The Cowboy Song is a funny little interlude before the album closes with a cover of the Beatles' Getting Better. I am not a Beatles fan, never have been; I can appreciate their role in the history of music without appreciating the music they produced as a group. In fact at the time I first heard this I did not even realise this was a Beatles cover. I think it is probably a good cover, though. At least I like the song I hear here. The structure suits the vocal talent, there's a good twang on the guitar and it closes the album well, although again the last minute could probably be removed with little loss.
Its coming up to lunchtime; gardening has been successfully delayed until after food, at least.
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