Monday 31 March 2014

Album Review- Speedy, News From Nowhere

Seventeen years ago, during the year 1997, you would imagine many bands imploded, never to record together again. However, very few of them would have released a succession of successful singles, recorded a debut album, and then been dropped, leaving said album sat unheard by the then Britpop loving hoards. As unlikely as it sounds, that is exactly what happened to Speedy.

Fast forward to 2014, and the people behind the 1p Album Club, a blog dedicated to the albums you can buy on Amazon for just 1 penny, and Alcopop Records, the label responsible for putting out some of the best records in the last seventeen years have decided they need a new club,  The Lost Music Club. This new label will be unearthing those albums and recordings that time forgot, and presenting them, all shiny and new to the public for the first time. As unlikely as it sounds, this is exactly what is happening to Speedy.

At the album's start the 'lost' nature of the record itself manages to get a little lost. The first two tracks proper, Anytime Anyplace Anywhere, and Heard Seen Done Been  were released as a double A-side single, so hearing them again one after the other, feels a little like having dug that single out of the attic. Truth be told it's a little anti-climatic after waiting this long for the record, but that doesn't take away from the strength of the songs. They're two belters, which nicely set the scene for the album to come, and it's the next, middle section of the record which mainly houses the majority of the unfamiliar material. The lyrical themes introduced with the singles remain right through. Images of grim Northern council estates never far from the surface, female characters being held down by society, or their boyfriends, or both. Lads on the lash. The musical themes are similarly constant too.

Speedy are a band with their own sound. It's one that's been influenced by their peers and their city, Sheffield, but it's their own. They don't have a sound akin to any particular one of the Britpop bands, big or small with whom they shared Shine Complilations. A Day In The Life Of Riley is an insanely catchy tune easily the equal of The Lightning Seeds near-named Match Of The Day botherer, and the bands use of brass sounds so much more natural than it did in most of Britpop, particularly on Time For You and their biggest hit hit Boy Wonder. This is a band who've used it in their songwriting process, it hasn't been placed there by a producer looking to spice up the sound. Yet it's singer Philip Watson's voice that resonates most. His semi-croon is at odds with the subject matter, adding a suave, debonair edge to images of single mothers abusing the benefits system. These aren't love songs in any traditional sense, but he sings them like they're full of the most tender, loving sentiments in the world.

Sadly, not everything hits the spot. Time For You, whenever the epic brass is absent just fails to get going. The Sporting Life could have been missed off the album without anything being missed,  nothing from it's near-grim up north cliche title, to it's plodding sound hitting the mark. That track was always going to have a hard time of it on the running order though, following Boy Wonder, which sounds as fun and as invigorating as it did back then. If this album had never seen the light of day and Boy Wonder would have been the thing for which Speedy would have been ever remembered, they still could have been a rightly proud fivesome.

Things do pick up again after The Sporting Life, through Karaoke King and Going Home, and into the absolutely outstanding title track. A mid tempo number, it showcases Philip's voice better than anything else here, and the hammond organ riffs and fills present throughout add a rich dense layer to the track, marking it out as a little different from anything else here.

The album, quite simply, sounds better for having been put on the back burner all this time. In 1997, News From Nowhere would have been a little lost in the britpop mix, as the band themselves were, and undeservedly so. It's a fantastic record. It well deserves to see the light of day after all this time, and hats off to Lost Music Club for unearthing it. With it being released now, it sounds fresh, and different to what classes as mainstream indie music today, and will serve as a reminder to younger music fans that Blur, Oasis and Pulp were not the only bands that represented the Britpop sound. There was a lot more depth to it than the big three, and this, the best Britpop record in seventeen years, showcases it better than a lot of records that sold millions back in the day.



News From Nowhere is available to preorder now from the Lost Music Club Shop

No comments:

Post a Comment