Rod Stewart - Every Picture Tells A Story
Rod the Mod finds his solo footing, headed for stardom, with the Faces in his wake.
6:00 AM GMT 22/06/2011
(Probe Plus, 2008)
Belfast combo return unannounced, go sardonic pop-folk.
Fate has decided; music fans will likely always know Noel Burke as the frontman of the Ian McCulloch-less formation of Echo & The Bunnymen (he later told Bunnysite Villiers Terrace that he was "practically dancing round the room" with happiness when his tenure ended). But before that he sang with Belfast's St Vitus Dance, whose smart, tuneful Love Me Love My Dogma came out in 1987. 21 years later and completely out of the blue, the follow-up arrived. A folkier listen than its predecessor, with bouzouki, accordion and mandolin augmenting the drums and guitars, it melodically articulates things that good-time rock is generally uncomfortable with: there's failure, ageing, ambivalence about the past and irritation with stupefying popular culture and positive go-getter types (the narrator of the languorous The Stakeholder's Lament speaks for millions when he says "I'm just a naysayer / I'm not a team player"), with Burke sounding forbearing and slightly pained like a grumpier Roddy Frame. There are also just-out-of-shot feelings of doom, as on closer Longfinger, which begins as an Ennio Morricone pastiche and ends like Strangeways-era Smiths. Like bigger histories, rock'n'roll can be a triumphant story when written by the winners, but this marginalia's still worth investigation. The title, incidentally, is an in-joke invented to mean a disco for the sheep-minded.
Ian Harrison
Posted by Ross_Bennett at 6:00 AM GMT 09/03/2010
St Vitus Dance - Love Me Love My Dogma (1987)
Echo & The Bunnymen - Reverberation (WEA, 1990)
The Beautiful South - 0898 (GO! Discs, 1992)
Rod the Mod finds his solo footing, headed for stardom, with the Faces in his wake.
6:00 AM GMT 22/06/2011
Last salvo of Ginsters Pasty-Warholism from Britpop ramraiders.
12:04 PM GMT 08/06/2011
An overlooked small wonder from an unpredictable career.
6:00 AM GMT 03/06/2011
Dry computer club Futurists, upon hitting implausible chart paydirt.
6:00 AM GMT 17/05/2011
Epic Danish jams, for when the neighbours get you down.
6:00 AM GMT 12/05/2011
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