Justine Frischmann now seems to be remembered for dumping Brett Anderson and becoming Damon Albarn’s girlfriend.
This seems a bit unfair to me as this debut album went straight in at number one in the charts back in 1995 and they were a respected band for a period.
Fifteen songs in less than forty minutes always piques my interest as you cannot beat songs that get in and out quickly, have a fair few guitar hooks and catchy choruses.
They were hampered by being sued by publishers for certain songs sounding like Wire and The Stranglers, they settled out of court but plenty of good songs sound familiar and so what if they sound great. Rumours of drugs meant that there was no follow up for five years and The Menace sold poorly, and the band announced they were done.
However, they should be proud of this album as all five singles on the album are thrilling. Line Up, Connection and Waking Up are classic pop tunes with attitude and Line Up opens the album brilliantly with raw guitar. Debut single Stutter is a lovely thrash along before Justine starts to sing, its gone before you know it but no worse for that. Car Song was probably a single to far but has something.
The band convince and there is a swagger to Vaseline and Never Here and at this point this was a band tight and not slowly disintegrating. Personal favourite Hold Me Now has Justine practically speaking the verses with the band making a racket behind her, brilliant.
They had their moment; some bands never do. Based on listening to this record twenty-eight years after release they deserved it.
8.5/10
GIVE IT A STREAM: Hold Me Now