Wrong, wrong, wrong.... Wrong, wrong, wrong....
Does anyone read these pages? Who knows. Anyway, if you have and you'd been looking closely, you might have noticed a couple of almost digs in the direction of S-K over One Beat from me. All Hands On The Bad One is one of my favourite albums ever, and it seemed to me that this, the follow up, was disappointing.
But... I never forgot how long it took to get Hot Rock, and how much Bad One meant, so I kept coming back to this every so often. Perversely, I decided my Xmas CD had to have a S-K track on it, and listened a bit more before choosing Sympathy. And that track, picked out of context, just grew and grew. Maybe the others would too? Well they have.
Perhaps it was the sheer hardness this album appears to have on first listening that put me off. First and title track One Beat is a hard and seemingly unyielding beginning. There is a never-to-be-resolved tension throughout this song, where initially, the lack of bass seems to push it too far. I think it's about nuclear power, or anyway something that's all-too-powerful to take on its own terms. Carrie or Corin (sorry, I still don't know which voice is which) has a harsh echo on her voice that tries to make the song inpenetrable, yet the lyric is poetic and well thought out. This sounds like no-one but S-K.
The harshness continues with Far Away. You don't need a degree to know it's about 9/11. But what an excellent way to communicate your feelings about such a massive event. "And the president hides while working men rush in to give their lives". The crux of the song is the repeated line "why can't I get along with you?!". As the song progresses it gains a reflective break and the tension is dissolved only to be reinstated. This is a big song that manages to tackle a theme most seem to be shy of.
Oh! Time for something a bit more straightforward. I always liked this one with it's mad synth line in the chorus. S-K always get painted as serious grrls, but why?! (lazy journalist syndrome, obviously, but they're no rock'n'roll fun) - the humour was always there, and it's here too. While we're in the area, Step Aside ('Janet, Carrie, can you hear it?') is another pop classic, complete with horn enhanced chorus. The sheer infectious joy of this song will surely make you shake it one time.
The Remainder, with it's Lesley cabinet backing vocals is an excellent bit of atmosphere, building towards the end via strings and other layers. This is followed by Light-Rail Coyote which starts with the kind of rock harshness we had on the first couple of tracks. I'm not sure what this song is about - though it seems to have been inspired by a coyote jumping on a train. This is where Step Aside actually appears, but we already covered that...
Combat Rock is a post 9/11 song. It debates what the reaction to that event should be, but mainly highlights the fact that there should be debate: "where is the questioning, where is the protest song? Since when is skepticism un-American". This is a well thought out song that stands up to the scrutiny they must have expected it would get. Earlier today I was reading the lyrics to the Beastie Boys 'protest' - it's not a patch on this - oh and the music is very good too.
The next song O2 has that lighter touch like Oh! or Step Aside. I think it's a 'can't live with it, can't live without it' type love song. Anyway it's a joyous slab of punk-pop.
Funeral Song, Prisstina and Hollywood Ending remind me of some of the songs from Bad One. In Funeral Song, there is a powerful tension in the 'There's nothing left to see' chorus, gloriously released in the break that follows it towards the end. Prisstina, with it's funny echoey sounds and synths layered onto the more standard S-K sound is a sad but nonetheless uplifting song - cos yeah 'that girl is ahead of her time'. The third song of this trio, Hollwood Ending, starts with a taut bouncy verse and a more shouty chorus. The megaphone bit at the end is inspired.
So to the last track Sympathy. It has a bluesy, rocky beginning (what singing!) which moves into a Sympathy For The Devil chorus (in the loosest sense, I'm not claiming plagiarism, just trying to describe it), and then the Moment Strikes - what an excellent phrase to use to bring us into a bold change that puts the icing on the cake. I'm glad I chose this song for my Xmas CD, it's so much what S-K are about. One vocalist sings the verse, the other the chorus; other voices always back the main one up; the guitars intertwine effectiveley and the drums are rock solid, exploiting that space left by the absence of bass. See there are three people co-operating to make great music, and they make us feel part of it - what more could you want?
So somewhere along the way it all clicked and this is up there with Hate as one of the best albums of 2003 - and it's still growing. I have not yet seen S-K live, but I would dearly love to be there witnessing what I can only imagine right now.
Neal - 14/03/03