Review Summary: Saccharin soaked Britpop with more hooks than a fisherman's tackle-box.
Ian Broudie had been peddling his individual brand of gauzy melodic Britpop under the monicker of 'The Lightning Seeds' for 5 years leading up to this release. Formerly known in the UK as more of a producer and technician than a musician and composer this is the album that finally brought him into the mainstream and features 4 hit singles.
The success Broudie gained with this album was probably due in no small part to the enthusiasm of the music press and buying public at the time in the UK which seemed to be in love with everything Britpop related. But it would be unfair to label this album as just another mediocre release riding on the coat-tails of a genre explosion. The music itself is sugary coated guitar driven pop with copious layers of synthesizers and samples to which extended exposure could cause you to dash to the toilet with a case of tummy trouble. However, taken in small doses Broudie's overproduced excesses and syrupy sweet melodies are easier to stomach and there are some great pop songs on here. Opener 'Perfect' draws the listener into a rose-tinted world of urban life , 'hazy petrol nights, crimson sun on traffic lights', before launching into a soaring chorus of softly overdriven guitars and strings. Standout track 'Lucky You' bounces along with a joyful enthusiasm and is chock full with catchy little overdubbed guitar twangs and contrived sounding vocal ooh-aahs. Top 20 single 'Change' is about as close the album comes to serving up a straight-up pop/rock song but even here Broudie can't resist pumping it up with a fat helping of overdubbed vocal harmonies and swirling synth fills. 'Marvelous' begins with an extended synth intro but develops into a quirky pop song with silly lyrics, cheesy saxophone samples and a retro guitar riff hidden behind a simple bass line and pretty much defines the term 'so bad it's good'. 'Feeling Lazy' is another of Broudie's windows onto urban English life and brings to mind some of the more playful dabblings by The Kinks, albeit dressed up with a fair helping of strawberries and cream.
Taken as a whole this album is rather inconsistent and starts to fizzle out by the time you are halfway through. Some of the ideas are stretched too thin and the weak tracks are feeble in the extreme. But if you fancy a big serving of sugar encrusted pop with joyful throwaway hooks and a naive innocence to lighten up your day you could do a lot worse than give this a spin.
