From James I had to stay with the early 90′s Brit pop and given that I’d had a look at ‘Madchester’ with The Stone Roses, AllMusic and lots of similar sites kept mentioning one similar artist, The Happy Mondays.
Their most critically acclaimed album was Pills ‘n’ Thrills and Bellyaches, from this one example of a Happy Monday’s album you can hear the why they have been compared to James and The Stone Roses.

I’d only really heard step On before but I’m very aware of Shaun Ryder for his work with Gorillaz and the fact he’s followed band mate Bez into to celebrity jungle and is now starring alongside Les Dennis and Bobby Davrro on those god awful Ant and Dec Saturday tea time programmes.

Not really knowing what to expect from the album it did exactly what the review sites suggested it would… find itself in a happy medium between the pop sound James produced in their post Stutter days and the electro-dance infusion that The Stone Roses used to such good effect in the late 80s. In fact I’d go as far and say that the lyrics and vocals are James-esque and the music itself are direct follow ons from Ian Brown’s iconic band.

However this album is very bland. It’s not bad, its ok. In fact I’d go as far as saying its done the worse thing an album can do… provoke no real reaction. At the time I can imagine it had huge following but with all these ‘cult’ albums I’m listening to it without all the hype of the era.

The album’s very sterile. Step On is an absolute classic hit, the trouble is that its ‘supporting cast’ are all a bit ‘samey-samey’. I can bet these songs were performed with all of the Manc swagger, but it somehow gets ‘lost in translation’ when listened to on the album.

Kinky Afro and God’s Cop are classic Madchester songs and they do set the album up well, they are brillant songs and I can imagine a crowd going nuts when they hear them being played. However every album has weaker songs and this album has its fair share, Harmony, Donovan and Holiday are the ‘supporting cast’  I referred to earlier, they don’t really add much to album, in fact they are more ‘extras’ than a supporting cast

I don’t want to critize the album, it’s a great listen with bundles of energy and fun and some great songs each with thier own characters from the ‘twisting melons’ of Step On to the pipes in Bob’s Yer Uncle.

 This album does seem to tire at the end but given that this album came out in the latter years of the Madchester periods, it may just be symbolic of the genre itself. By the time that Pils… was relased Madchester was starting to fade as its new sounds were just starting to sound very familiar.

Key Track: Loose Fit

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