Sarandon - The Completist's Library
1 Comments Published by Tom on Tuesday, August 29, 2006 at 17:25.
It's quite remarkable that when people discuss the C86 tape and era they associate it with "twee" or "jangle pop". Bands who claim to be influenced by that era make music in the same vein. Whilst I, and you will not be surprised to hear otherwise, agree that there is nothing at all wrong with that I am amazed that most people overlook the "noise merchants" (for the want of better words) who contributed more tracks than the so called jangle bands to said tape. These include The Shrubs, A Witness and Big Flame all of whom recorded for the excellent Ron Johnson label.These bands made some great records as did the likes of The Wolfhounds and Bogshed who sounded like nothing else on earth. John Peel, when confronted with band's music for the first time, described them as "shambling" a term now ironically used to describe the jangle pop bands from that period such as The Pastels and The Shop Assistants.
For some reason bands today have not really been influenced by the likes of the aforementioned acts although that changes with this release from Sarandon who sound like they could have been written about 20 years ago with the bands named above.
Lets quickly get the album into perspective. It's a compilation of their four 7" EP's released so far. It has 28 tracks, lasts for little under 35 minutes with the longest effort being slightly under two minutes. Indivdually Sarandon do not sound like any of the bands previously mentioned. However if you mix them all together, with a bit of post punk thrown in, you may get some idea of what they sound like. The band make further references to the C86 era and these not soley based on their sound either. Previous EPs were titled The Big Flame and The June Bride with vocal appearances by Alan Brown (Big Flame) and Phil Wilson (June Brides).
The songs here, complete with bitter & twisted taunting vocals, pour forward with even the shortest ones packing a bigger punch than some of the other songs/albums I have been reviewing recently. It's an audio assault as well as being pure punk pop fun - get it!
[Wrath Records - Out Now!]
Just got a copy of this. It's ace.