Three Albums

For my latest blog I thought I'd pick three albums that have made a significant impression on me.  Two in particular were albums that I didn't get, or simply didn't like when I first heard them, but had "grower" stamped all over them.  You may hate them, you may love them, you may have never heard of them, it doesn't really matter, what's important is that you'll read this and think yeah, I've had that relationship with an album.

The Drum - Diskin

For those who don't know, The Drum used to be China Drum, and released two albums of adrenalised pop-punk, typified by their breakneck version of Wuthering Heights. Then they took one of those musical right-turns that sends a band occasionally in such a different direction that not only the fans but the band themselves didn't seem able to deal with it, and it proved to be the band's downfall.

The change of name from China Drum to The Drum coincided with a change of emphasis to a studio wizardry approach, involving loops, cut-ups, drop-outs and a host of other techniques more suited to the world of DJ mixing than a traditional rock production. Apparently they had recorded the album initially as a more coventional rock album, but then decided they didn't like it and decided to essentialy remix the whole thing. Part of their ultimate downfall was that the resultant album was almost impossible to play live.

Having become a massive fan of CD's second album Self Made Maniac - which was a more polished rock beast than the punkier debut Goosefair - I bought the new album with great anticipation, having read that they'd taken an "interesting" new approach. The first time I listened to it, in bed with the lights off and through my headphones (the best way to listen to all music, of course), I was quite frankly baffled. On first listening there was absolutely nothing to suggest this was even the same band. I even went as far as to think I'd been given the wrong CD in the shop - it was in truth like nothing I'd ever listened to before, it was so far away from my expectations I literally did not know what to make of it.

In place of the punky riffs and wordy vocals of old, there was a melange of looped guitar figures, pitch shifting, weird synthy sounds, vocal samples, sparse lyrics and heavily distorted shouting. It was an album that sounded fractured to the point of insanity. There weren't even any clues to link the lyrics to the inscrutable song titles - which fuelled my initial suspicion that I had the wrong disc. Did I hate it? I don't know - at first I didn't even know if I would stomach trying it again. But as is my wont, I persevered and slowly it began to worm its way in.

What attracted me was that the album seemed to be a completely self-contained world, having seemingly no connection to any other music, including the band's previous work. It stood as a definite musical statement, in spite of the lyrics being mostly ambiguous and often impenetrable.  This is part of its pull - to this day there are lyrics I still can't work out and I hear new things in it every time I hear it.

But the bottom line, and what keeps me coming back to it, is the thrill of hearing the first kick-ass drum beat and spidery guitar figure, before all Hell breaks loose. From then on it's a 40 minute rollercoaster ride of outrageous and relentless strangeness, right up until the final scratchy minor seventh chord and faint drumroll. That's the point at which I want to hit play again. This album is like a drug you don't know how on earth you could have got hooked on. It would walk into my all time top 10 with ease.

The Dismemberment Plan - Emergency & I

Sometimes the albums you grow to adore are ones you're not always that keen on when you first hear it. As it was with Diskin, so it was with the Dismemberment Plan. A mate lent it to me for a month - first impressions from the cover were that it was going to be some kind of 80s electro pop throwback - New Musik sprang to mind, or something Wire forgot to release. He had played me the pivotal track, You Are Invited, which was bizarrely sparse. A deadpan vocal over a simple electronic drumbeat, but with the occasional stab of guitar. Interesting, but not exceptional.

I played the whole album and was similarly non-plussed. It sounded to me as if they were trying as hard as possible to be as difficult as possible. With time signatures all over the place, many of the songs were, on first listen, pretty hard to follow. Plus there were some creepily industrial keyboard sounds which lent the album an eerie feel.

But as is the way, repeated listens began to establish a grip. While in some ways the first half of the album still doesn't totally grab me, there are enough good moments in there to keep you listening, and anyway it's only the starter - the main course begins with You Are Invited. A strange tale about a fantastical invite which would get the holder into any party anywhere, but ultimately proves nothing other than that most parties are ultimately unsatisfying - he ends up giving it away - the song brilliantly builds real drums on top of the synth rhythms until suddenly the whole band bangs in with 45 seconds of riffage that most bands would be happy to build an entire song around. Then as soon as it arrives it is gone, and the simplistic beat is back.

From there the album grows in its scope and sense of ambition, with vocals ranging from heart-rending via crazily stuttering to desperate wailing, with the music become increasingly frenetic and fractious. In the final track, Back and Forth, it feels like the world is tumbling towards an inevitable and terrible climax, the singer spewing out apocalyptic poetry at breakneck speed, as if there isn't enough time left in the world to say them all. And when it comes, the ending is as abrupt and sudden as any I've heard.

Their other albums are often more awkwardly angular, not to mention witty, but nowhere else did they capture the pre-millennial sense of fear and desperation than the last twenty minutes of this album. But then again, neither has anyone else.

Electrasy - In Here We Fall

I love it when you're listening to the radio and a song comes on that stops you in your tracks. BYOB by System of a Down and Creeping Up The Back Stairs by the Fratellis spring to mind, but I cast myself further back to one Sunday afternoon many moons ago, when I was stuck in traffic on the M40. I was listening to the chart show and, in the lower reaches of the hit parade came a song called Morning Afterglow by Electrasy. I was stunned by the beauty and simplicity of this song (one verse and one chorus, repeated) and knew instantly that it would be an all-time favourite.

So spin forward to a couple of years. Electrasy had released one album, Beautiful Insane, which was an often very good but patchy affair, swinging wildly from one musical style to another and not really knowing which way it wanted to go. So the band decide they want to try and crack the US market and streamline their sound into an expansive, melodic and often noisy rock style with an occasional hint of hip-hop. Melding into this was the best of their earlier material, including Morning Afterglow and two other re-worked songs, plus a pretty brave, left-field version of Dazed and Confused.

This album for me sees the band fulfilling their musical potential with some of their most beautiful ballads nestling comfortably among the sturm und drang of attention-seeking rap-rock. Sadly the gamble never paid off, the band were dropped by their label and promptly turned their back on the industry. One of the great lost bands of the 90's.  Shame really, because Morning Afterglow remains one of my all-time favourite songs, and has a cracking video too.