Do yourself a favor and stay clear of any Wire albums if you plan on listening to The Menace and enjoying it, because Elastica unabashedly and liberally steal from them. Those bastards.

Of course, this goes under the assumption that dissecting someone’s sum parts out of a whole, re-adjusting the context can't be original art. It certainly goes against the Lester Bangs quote, “ALL ROCK ’N’ ROLL CULTURES PLAGIARIZE EACH OTHER. THAT IS INHERENT IN THEIR NATURE. SO MAYBE, SINCE WHAT ROCK ’N’ ROLL’S ABOUT IS PLAGIARISM ANYWAY, THE MOST OUT-AND-OUT PLAGIARIST, THE IMITATORS OF THE PRIME MOVING GENIUSES, ARE GREATER AND MORE VALID THAN THOSE GENIUSES!” And it certainly asserts a false assumption that I’ve actually heard a Wire album.

Making this assumption is so drastic a compliance to the idea that albums are made to cement themselves in the archives of achievement, not to be vital and alive. It’d also ignore the grinning ferocity of Elastica’s music, which is essentially great pop-songs on other people’s tools (the album ends covering Trio’s “Da Da Da,“ while “Love Like Ours” plays like a rehash of the Pixies’ “Cactus”). It’d be something if they ever tried to experiment with sampling…. Oh wait, I’m reviewing The Menace, aren’t I? Oops.

What else can you say about an album that in the duration of its first ten seconds on “Mad Dog God Dam,” opens with the synthesized sounds or a dog-barking mixed with gun-blaster sounds from Transformers before one of the most shamelessly New Wave-y keyboards come in—except this: The Menace is a brilliant collage of sounds made into a perverted, funny, and down-right catchy swirl of pop melodies. Imagine if Elvis Costello was a tease, and she emerged at the beginning of a new century after having listened to a lot of Bowie/Eno.

Elastica’s sneery attitude panders some impersonality, which in the wake of lead singer Justine Frischmann's well-publicized break-up with Blur singer/songwriter Damon Albarn, misses something. Blur’s 13 held such lovesick laments as “Tender” and “No Distance to Run,” tracks that might have as well been called “Justine, You Cruel Bitch” and “I Get to Keep the TV.” Meanwhile, Frischmann spits out, “Eeny meeny miney moaner / Catch a poet by the toga” on “Generator” and “Don’t want the same boy another time” on “Mad Dog.” Even the personal song, “My Sex,” has mumbling vocals that turn lines like “A lover who loves me when other have loved me not” into ambient gibberish. I wonder which one’s still licking their wounds?

The vocal stylings were one specific change here, shifting from the oh-so-distinctly British snarl of Frischmann’s on Elastica, to several dueting harmonies and multi-layered on Menace. Indicative of female unity? Not so. Because the other drastic change has been the band line-up: bass player Annie Holland quit in the midst of the first album’s tour, thus upsetting the grrrl rock format of three-girls-and-a-guy-drummer. Then during the everlasting tour and their Stone Rose-esque recluse period, guitarist Paul Jones and new keyboardist (ex-Pokémon?) Mew joined in. Then, guitar/vocalist/other-wearer-of-pants in the band Donna Matthews quit, to which Holland joined back in. Confused? Maybe we Americans weren't meant to understand Brit-pop soap operas. 

Through all the rubble, Menace does show that Frischmann became the leader of the band’s democratic regime, and relies on that independent spirit, as opposed to Elastica’s punky camaraderie. Elastica’s self-titled debut came off with an slick amateurishness, with most of its songs playing off of good hooks, and then knowing just when to end. It was infectious, but underdeveloped, and basically was an album of rarely aware Saturday Night Live skits. Menace is a pure evolution, from post-punk pop to ambient new wave pop, and seeing as this is the band’s sophomore release, it doesn’t feel like a conscious reinvention. A lot of Menace does weaken after its initial opening burst, but it maintains itself and definitely indicates Elastica deserved all of their initial press. And hopefully, I’m betting there’s a multitude of Wire parts for Firschmann & Co. to make a few more albums worth or music from.