Hard a port(al)

Manchester�s finest purveyors of indie big beat are back at their best with the release of their latest album �Wonderland�. The album is a move back to the era defining baggy beats of the early nineties, from the folk explorations of 1999 �Us And Us Only�. The music of this album is a testament to the staying power of a band that have watched their contemporaries (The Stone Roses, Happy Mondays, EMF etc.) collapse around them, with Burgess and co. reinventing themselves continually without loosing their inimitable Big Beat basis.

Burgess draws on a myriad of different sources and influences to add texture to Wonderland. On tracks like �Judas�, �Love Is The Key� and �I Just Can�t Get Over Loosing You�, Burgess uses his newly found falsetto to add a retro Disco feel. Nowhere is this more evident than on �I Just Cant Get Over Loosing You�, a track owing more to Kool and the Gang than to British Big Beat stalwarts like the Stone Roses. More Lo-Fi tracks include the sweeping �And If I Fall�, darkly melodic with an underlying trip-hop beat, and �A Man Needs To Be Told�, a song influenced by Damon Gough (Badly Drawn Boy) and Andy Votel�s Twisted Nerve record label, home to the cream of Manchester�s Acoustic scene.

The main Criticism I do have of this album is where these influences are seemingly a little forced, unnecessary even, off-balancing some tracks. For example on �The Ballad Of The Band�, the album�s darkest song, Yvonne Marx�s chilling, Bjork-esque vocals seem more pasted on than seamlessly interwoven. Again, On �You�re So Pretty, We�re So Pretty� the listener is left feeling that the minimalist angle is over-played and that the song really needs filling out. Given the layered nature of past Charlatans material, a nod to the bleak, caustic tunes of Radiohead's most recent efforts was never going to be an immediate fan base pleaser.

Despite these small failings, however, this is the Charlatans best effort since 1995�s eponymous classic. For fans of older Charlatans material such as �North Country Boy� and �One To Another� there is a lot in Wonderland to satisfy. The true strength of the album, however, is not that it is a carbon copy of their earlier successes, more a continuation of the Charlatans innate ability to evolve without loosing their very identifiable style (some thing Brit-pop hangers-on like Oasis could learn a lot from!). Wonderland is truly a necessary album for fans of the Charlatans.

4/5, Phil

Embrace

Title: If You�ve Never Been

By: Embrace

Released: 3/9/2001

Label: Hutt

We know just what to expect from Embrace � Grand, epic sounding songs alongside beautiful emotional ones. So what about �If You�ve Never Been� their third album?

As soon as you press play and hear the first thirty seconds of �Over�, you know that Embrace are going to deliver what you�ve come to expect from them. But that doesn�t mean that Embrace have become motionless and stagnated, turning out more of the same over and over again. The record was recorded quickly, over a few months, and the band digressed from using large orchestral ensembles for some of the songs. The result? A record that sounds that little bit fresher than its predecessors. There�s also some experimentation in there with �Hey, What You Trying To Say� containing some very �whirry-whiney� noises coupled with a beautiful subdued melody and �If You�ve Never Been In Love With Anything� having some wonderfully discreet, non-descript noises. And am I the only person to think that the aforementioned song has in places a slight retro 60�s feel to it?

Some of the new tracks have a very basic, stripped-down feel. The penultimate song �Happiness Will Get You In The End� is such a track, where the most powerful instrument is Danny�s tenor-like voice.

The string and brass instruments that give Embrace their well known grand sound are still in there, pleasing fans of earlier tracks �All You Good Good People� and �My Weakness Is None Of Your Business�. The very first track on the album, �Over�, is a fantastic opener of Embrace style epic proportions. �Wonder�, the first single taken off this album, is an incredibly beautiful song that also has that colossal feel to it. This coupled with the emotive lyrics deliver a gorgeous, heartbreaking song that never fails to move me. Track five �It�s Gonna Take Time� combines both that mighty sound with�well, that elusive something that I just can not pin down!

Nearing the end of the record, track eight �Make It Last� is what strikes me as having a �traditional� Embrace feel � if there is such a thing. It�s one of those beautiful songs where the delicate melody and Danny�s vocals blend perfectly, tugging at your heartstrings in the process. Every time I hear it I just can�t help myself singing �to me, to me�!

If you�re looking for specific meanings in the lyrics in the songs then you�ve got a herculean task. To me most of the songs seem to concern relationships gone wrong, but they could equally allude to other things � they don�t pin themselves down to specifics. And maybe that�s a good thing. You can listen to the songs, and depending on your interpretation, the songs become personal, become yours, and mean something to you and you only.

The penultimate song, �Happiness Will Get You In The End�, the title sounding like an ominous threat, leads exquisitely into the concluding track, �Satellites�. For Embrace this finale has a dark beginning, which is suddenly lifted by the acoustic strums of a guitar, and then leads into a sublime, heavenly sound that simply takes your breath away.

Fantastic!

8/10, Austin Booth

Fantomas

Title: The Director�s Cut

By: Fantomas

Released: 23/7/2001

Label: Ipecac Recordings

It seems a strange choice to have your second album consisting entirely of old B-movie theme tunes but then we are talking about Fantomas here. Never ones to do the expected, Fantomas turn the work of composers such as Henry Mancini, Enio Morricone and Walter Schumann into a CD of distorted, disturbed noise that makes the likes of Limp Wristed and the rest of the �nu-metal� scene sound like a collection kiddie nursery rhymes

The band consist of Mike Patton (Faith No More/ Mr Bungle), Dave Lombardo (Slayer), Trevor Dunn (Mr Bungle) and Buzz Osborne (The Melvins), and it is the workaholic Patton that has twisted these perfectly harmless sounding film scores into this malevolent beast.

The first track, the theme from �The Godfather� opens with that floaty, typically Italian sounding intro and all is well, until the crunching guitar jerks you to attention and the noise begins. Light speed drums and Pattons� percussive vocal noises set the scene for what is to follow.

If you were lucky enough to have heard the first album you�ll have some idea of what this sounds like. Although this one makes for a much easier listen, as this sounds like structured songs, with a tune and everything. The Directors cut owes much more to Mr Bungle then the first and incorporates all those silly synth noises we�ve all come to love on Bungle releases. �Experiment in Terror�(originally by Henry Mancini), could almost be a Bungle song as it mixes a lounge bar croon along with thrash metal drums and fuzzed out guitars. The same goes for �Vendetta� (originally by John Barry). Weird stabby rhythms and keyboard shenanigans are rife, and you get the impression that Mike didn�t have to call the rest of them into the studio that day.

�Rosemary�s Baby�, �Henry: Portrait Of A Serial Killer� and �Twin Peaks - Fire Walk With Me�, are among the more well known titles that appear. Although my favourites have to be the ones you just know came from one of those dodgy 60�s horrors with terrible special effects and a girl that always falls over; i.e. �Spider Baby� (originally by Ronald Stein) bounces along its merry way, and it is a jolly little tune, with Mike Patton growling about �Screams and moans and bats and bones, and teenage monsters in haunted homes� over the top. Cheese aside, you just can�t help yourself nodding along with that infectious little riff.

Fantomas, with this album, have managed to create a piece of music that shows that distorted guitars and breakneck speeds don�t have to be macho, crotch-grabbing music for spotty adolescent boys. Obviously this is due in part to the original songwriters, but Patton and co. have gone to great pains to make this album as original as possible. The songs, whilst being structurally identical to the originals have been beaten, thoroughly kicked, bruised and battered to fit the Fantomas sound. Nothing is spared this treatment and when you hear the theme from �The Omen� turned into something that sounds like Slayer had they been to Bradford and had a crack at song writing with the Sisters of Mercy, you�ll understand what I mean.

Huxley

Traumatism - Grossly Unfair

Band: Traumatism

Title: Grossly Unfair

Label: Independent

These arctic experts on the gory and gruesome have returned, evolving their previous 7� into a full-length album. 13 tracks pound and pulverize their sadistic way through various forms of torture, disease and defilement. Traumatism fully embodies the death metal/grindcore shtick to its fullest, full of jack-hammer drumming, demonic vocals, coarse bass-laden riffs and so on and so on.

Musically, there is little question about their technical talent. The songs pulse their way forward full-throttle, creating considerably complex change-ups at stop-of-the-dime timing. However, it lacks any evident ingenuity. This doesn�t seem to be the sort of ground that hasn�t already been trodden on by the likes of Morbid Angel or Napalm Death or the like.

Lyrically, again, there is little room for creativity. The alteration of vocals and usurping speed metal-cum-punk sound of �Marirwana� is a welcome change, though, as is the almost straight-ahead hard rock attitude of �Extreme Killing Capacity.� Other than that, topics center on disease, suicide, wanton murder and the like. I can�t read French, but I highly doubt they are covering any new territory with their French lyrics. One slight appeal, however, is how the songs are often quite tongue-in-cheek (�Get Out of My Way!� or �Good Reasons to Kill�). However, the excessively poor and redundant descriptions get to be a bit much, and cause anything from squeamishness to boredom.

Overall, a genuine article for fans of gruesomely horrific metal, but not enough breathing room for the curious listener to be able to adhere to.

Brian Connelly

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