If there's any justice in the world, Ultrasound's forthcoming 88-minute debut double LP will stay at the top of the album charts for at least the rest of the millenium, such is their ocean-spanning breadth of scope and skyscraper-straddling
ambition. Prog-rock? Maybe, who cares...? When it's done with the pollen-drenched heady hypnotism of "Floodlit World" it could be Pinky and Perky-rock ("who?" - the kids) and I wouldn't give a damn. As stellar and gigantic as anything they've ever done, Ultrasound's latest is already a live favourite: the interplay between Tiny's at times strangulated wail and Vanessa's goddess-like harmonies is capable of doing things to you no respectable song should be able to. And to harken to a recent debate on the HeadBoard, here is a band that don't look at a guitar and see a tool - instead they see
something to wring innovation out of until it begs for mercy.
First b-side is a cover of Beatles' "Getting Better", treating it with Blue Meanie irreverence though sadly not
ripping out its spine and whipping up a frenzy with it (which is what any band thinking of covering the Fab Four's material should do - at the very least). Then follows "Death Of Drag Racer", a raunchier and rawer thing
than "Floodlit World" which, with its grinding guitar and pounding bass, doesn't sound a million leagues away from The Pixies (tonight Matthew, Tiny and Vanessa will be Black Francis and Kim Deal). Nice descent into chaos in the outro, too.
CD2 beckoned, teasingly. I succumbed. I was rewarded with "Floodlit World" again (I'm not complaining - I could listen to it all day), a demo of "We Will Find Love" (a gentle and delicate ballad sung by the wonderful Vanessa - "how I've missed you, like the warmth of my own blood"), and - best of all - the gothic melodrama that is the video to swoonsome mountain-splitter "I'll Show You Mine", which sees the band serenading the end of the world.
And who better placed to do that than Ultrasound?
Rating: 10/10
The Rest
After the dry cleaning of your soul that is Ultrasound, new-boy white rap trash Enimem comes along to dirty it
up again. Now, I don't care if the rest of this lad's material makes Vanilla Ice sound like a credible artist, but "My Name Is" is the most infectious slice of dumb ass US rap pie to emerge proud and tumescent above the bedclothes for a long time. A sassy bass dub and lean musical backing helps (courtesy of Dr Dre), as do the preposterous but amusing lyrics ("My brain's deadweight, I'm trying to get my head straight, but I can't figure out which Spice Girls I want to impregnate", "99% of my life I was lied to - I just found out my mum does more dope than I do"), but best thing about "My Name Is" is the chorus which burrows into your brain like a maggot with a pneumatic drill. 100% proof.
First b-side is an instrumental, listenable enough (testament to Dr Dre's skill at knob-twiddling), then comes
"Just Don't Give", inhabiting similar territory to the a-side, but without the thud to the chest infectiousness.
Rating: 8/10
"Make hay, not war" (buy the t-shirts now) - so brays the imposing figure of Cerys in this string-dripping presage of Catatonia's new
LP - which is appropriate enough, as she approachess the song with all the grace and style of a young farmer who's drunk too much scrumpy. What is it about this lot that sees some people - the Melody Maker in particular - fall over themselves in a stuporific scramble to praise them? The music's nothing special (Britpop circa 1997), and the vocals are so affected and laboured that politicians sound sincere next to Ms Matthews. You'd be as well digging out your old Sleeper LPs (yes, it's that bad).
"Branding A Mountain" is preferable to the sound of nails on a blackboard, with its country-folk leanings and
rugby song singing. Actually, give me the sound of nails on a blackboard anytime. "Bad Bad Boy" is last, redeemed only by the fact that it sounds vaguely like the theme tune to Trumpton.
Rating: 2/10
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