Mid-90s Chicks Return: Elastica, Veruca Salt, Nina Gordon; Dirty Beatniks; Stephin Merritt's Future Bible Heroes

The Menace Elastica (Deceptive)

Resolver Veruca Salt (Beyond)

Tonight and the Rest of My Life Nina Gordon (Warner Bros.) They're back, but they're not exactly thriving. Both are on indie labels. Well, not really?Elastica's is distributed by Atlantic and Veruca's by BMG, so they're not really "independent." More likely those mega-labels wanted to keep their distance, for fear that these two "comeback" albums might bomb. On the other hand, former Veruca Salt guitarist/vocalist Nina Gordon gets the big league bid with her new solo album, Tonight and the Rest of My Life. Labels apparently have a lot more faith in solo female artists right now than they do in rock bands led by females (particularly retreads like these).

In the case of Elastica, this lack of faith is justified. They never were much, just a Brit aggregation with a cunt-tease attitude who romanticized the artier class of late-70s bands (Wire, etc.). But now they're even less. The album starts with some digi-spin techno-beat on "Maddog Goddam" and Frischmann doing her best Chrissie Hynde impression. Nothing's changed, in other words, but it's not 1994 anymore. They're still using the same hypnotic organ riff they used on "Connection," a song that was basically a ripoff of Wire's "Three Girl Rhumba." Later, they pillage Wire again, this time with the riff from "Lowdown" making up the basis of "Human." "Nothing Stays the Same" is a pleasant enough ditty that actually conjures Reagan-era MTV wank, but like all their songs, it's static: despite their kinky pretenses, this is a band with no "variations."

The same can't be said for Veruca Salt. Subscribing to Liz Phair's credo, "I'll show them just how far I can bend," Veruca was like a writhing personification of snarling white-cat heat. American Thighs was the album I'd been waiting to hear all my life: ultra-ultra-ultra exaggerated super-rock riffs underneath ethereal female vocals. Veruca were the rare female-led aggregation who weren't ball-cutting man-haters. They rather liked men, as a matter of fact, but apparently Louise Post and Nina Gordon didn't like each other too much. Hence a nasty breakup.

Now, two years later, Gordon's struck out on her own as a chanteuse and Post has retained the Veruca name with a whole new lineup. Both of these albums contain fuck-off songs a la Lennon's "How Do You Sleep?" or John Lydon's "Lowlife." Gordon's toast-off is called "Number One Blind" and it takes up right where Veruca left off with its anthemic Cheap Trick quality. The fact that it makes direct reference to Veruca (remember "Number One Camera"?) makes the intent even more obvious. "I could peel you like a pear and God would call it justice," Gordon sings, which may refer to Post's physical dimensions, considering that all that decadent rockstar living has apparently caused her to balloon a bit. Gordon, on the other hand, still has her fashion-model looks, but this is the kind of album one might expect from a fashion model: overproduced, saccharine ballads filled with greeting-card sentiment. It's a shame, too, because Gordon wrote most of the good stuff for Veruca.

The good news is, Louise Post seems to have inherited a lot of Gordon's craft and at least half of the new Veruca album is true to its namesake. The black leather pants may have gotten tighter, but so have songs like "Officially Dead" and "Hellraiser." "Yeah Man" is just great bubblegum hard rock a la Suzy Quatro. And Post's fuck-off song, "Only You Know," trumps Gordon's by coming right out and saying "you're a hopeless liar and a hypocrite."

Where's Jerry Springer when you need him?

Joe S.Harrington

Feedback Dirty Beatniks (Wall Of Sound) The coolest trick Primal Scream achieved while recording Xtrmntr was to make it sound so contemporary while remaining firmly rooted in rock tradition. I interviewed Ian Astbury the other day. Now here's a man you think would be perhaps a little embarrassed in the role he's played in rock. After all, the Cult are hardly innovators or revolutionaries in the tradition of the MC5 or Cupid Car Club. So is he remorseful? No way: indeed, he feels himself to be a visionary because?get this?people enjoy themselves at Cult shows. The Cult, he explains, are cousins to the Seattle scene of the early 90s (presumably because they play guitars loudly), and he is a visionary on a par with Bobby Gillespie (presumably because they share a love for punk). Is he wrong? The Cult have a certain naive elan to their swaggering, sleazy rock 'n' roll: the Primals have a similar innocence at the heart of their swaggering, sleazy, futuristic noise. In rock terms, both sets of musicians are ancient?at least, compared to their heroes in their prime. I guess a love of music really is down to self-perception. The weirdest aspect of dance music in England is how so much of it is created by men who really ought to be encouraging their children to create same: the Orb, Fatboy Slim, Primals, even Boy George. Is this what is meant by new, then? Dance music created by people who created rock music in their prime?

Dirty Beatniks may not be as old, but they sound it. (In other words: contemporary, cutting edge.) Feedback is one long, heady, sludge-fuck of a record full of dance beats first patented by New Order almost 20 years ago and updated by Primal Scream with alarming regularity. The titles could have come directly from an early 70s Curtis Mayfield record?"Whores, Freaks, Saints And Angels"; "Any Flavour But Vanilla"; "Kris Kristofferson." The music is what is commonly called "a blistering fusion of break beats and dirty rock 'n' roll" (The Guardian) or "disco carnage" (everyone else). In reality, this means a Shaun Ryder-esque voice half-speaking, half-chanting over rock samples and a wah-wah guitar, frequently backed up with an elastic female harmony.

Dirty Beatniks' new singer Mau boasts impeccable credentials (he was formerly in the sci-fi, jazz-influenced triphop band Earthling), but his modus operandi doesn't veer too much from the blueprint set down by better-known acts like Lo-Fidelity Allstars and (of course) Sly Stone. Words of menace, free-associated over dub-heavy special grooves. ("Low Rock" is Happy Mondays' "WFL" given a cursory fresh lick of bass; the masochistic and otherwise interesting "Let Me Be Your Ashtray" is as well.) This isn't a bad album?in fact, it's remarkably accomplished and will round off an evening spent watching the Trainspotting video nicely.

Everett True

I'm Lonely (And I Love It) Future Bible Heroes (Merge) Stephin Merritt may have more identities than a drag queen playing Sally Field playing Sybil, but the real trick up his sleeve is another person entirely. Claudia Gonson acts as Merritt's manager and plays drums and sings?too infrequently?for Merritt's main band, the Magnetic Fields. Her voice embodies the thin line between innocent and ancient, plain and mysterious, sexless and sexy. When she sings Merritt's lyrics, she keeps his cynicism in check, or at least makes it felt. In turn, his depressed cabaret croon, touching in its own way, is elevated whenever it has Gonson as a neighbor. Which is why the idea behind Merritt's side band, Future Bible Heroes, sounds like a sure thing. Their debut, Memories of Love, split the vocal duties right down the middle: Merritt sang one, Gonson the next and so on. Unfortunately, they were left dangling by Chris Ewen's twee new-wave arrangements, too slight to be taken seriously and too hesitant to be funny. Was it a parody of O.M.D., or the world's most redundant nostalgia trip? Only Merritt's dark wit and clever melodies and Gonson's otherwordly singing kept the thing afloat like a postpunk Richard and Linda Thompson.

On this new EP, Gonson only takes lead vocals on two of the six tracks, and one of those is a lame remix of the debut's "Hopeless." Give Ewen credit for trying a different strategy with the music this time. He ups most of the tempos to disco 4/4, and messies up the sounds a bit. But it still doesn't add up to much, and Merritt's delivery is not suited to clubland paces. Even worse, his tunes don't stick to your brain the way they usually do, and he dumps the weakest new track on Gonson. In short, I'm Lonely is filler tossed off while Merritt figures out what to do with the clout he gained from last year's acclaimed Magnetic Fields opus, 69 Love Songs. Next up from Merritt is a disc from his other project, The 6th's, which features vocals from a variety of established indie hipsters. If only he would devote an entire record to Gonson, which would be a distraction worth getting excited about.

Justin Hartung

From the Vapor of Gasoline The Mercury Program (Tiger Style) Here's a hard and fast rule you should always apply to bands who (a) are influenced by the spacious experimentation of Thrill Jockey acts, (b) like to bandy around words like "progression" and "sophomore" in their press releases and (c) recall the loose, jazz-textured rhythms of the mischievous Bristol UK collectives (Flying Saucer Attack, Telefunken). Does their music sound like the experimental, smoky soundtrack to a French film yet to be written (all dark angles, young women unbelievably lusting after haggard old men and shady usage of cigarettes)? Could it be described as "soundscapes"? If so, run for the fucking hills, boy. Run for the fucking hills. (There's a reason why soundtracks are always accompanied by moving pictures, you know.) You may think I am about to give From the Vapor of Gasoline a well-deserved kicking. After all, it is their sophomore effort, and it does show a marked progression from their Boxcar debut. Yes, it's reminiscent of the cadenced chord progressions of Midwest bands and like Tortoise and Slint to a ridiculous degree. Yes, the gentle melodies and offbeat guitars on "Re-Inventing a Challenge for Machines" also recall the distrait experimentalism of Don Caballero spinoff band Storm and Stress. Yes, jazz-influenced beats, vibraphone and guitar harmonics resonate around structures bewildering in their complexity; and (sigh) songs aren't songs as such, but soundscapes echoing across genres. Yes, this sounds like French film blurred.

But... This music is so anonymous, so obviously there to fill space and do little else, it's almost impossible to feel passionate about it one way or another.

Everett True

Tender Is the Savage Gluecifer (Sub Pop)

Uppers and Downers The Yo Yos (Sub Pop) In the near future and on the strength of a few releases, Sub Pop may be the most vital indie-rock label in the nation once again. Starting with the Hellacopters, the label seems to have taken a direct dive into genuine punk-rock turf, and it's not looking back. Just the past few months have seen releases by the Makers, the Go and the Murder City Devils, all bands that to some extent pay homage to the more ribald and less precious forms of rock stylization. Even Vue, a group with perhaps more art leanings than the aforementioned, purveys a kind of glam-rock decadence that's refreshing in the humble era of math-rock and pocket-calculator impotence. Coming on the heels of all that spuzz are two more hyped-up aggregations that are a welcome burst of nitrogen in an otherwise complacent landscape. Gluecifer hails from Norway and is part of the same arctic blast that's enlivened that portion of the world's rock scene, which began with Sweden's Hellacopters and continues now with these trigger-happy troublemakers. Pals with the Copters (they did a split CD with them a year ago), Gluecifer embraces the same Nordic God mentality and preaches the same allegiance to the wild-in-the-streets ethos of vintage Detroit. What separated Detroit rock from the rock 'n' roll coming out of other American cities during rock's golden age was that the technological pulse and working-class sensibilities of the city itself seemed indelibly imbued in the music. How that sound and esthetic has swept the Anglo-Nordic regions would probably be worth a book, but I suppose it's no less likely than the Iron Curtain crashing to the sound of the Velvet Underground and Mothers. Rock 'n' roll has become the farthest-reaching cultural tribunal of the last century, and the same fire that ignited America and England to kick out the jams in those years has become an indefinitely redeemable resource in regions as remote as the glacier-peaked domes of Scandinavia.

Which is where Gluecifer comes in, rocking the house as if the house were the Grande Ballroom and the assembled multitudes were revolution-fueled zealots about to bomb the nearest post office. "The General Says Hell Yeah" is a perfect example of MC5-type street-rock, exploding right out of the gate with an incendiary riff and Rob Tyner-style vocals waxing sentiments like "You can live your life on a common ground/Or you can strut your stuff to the idiot sound." Guitars squeal in that same shrapnel-flying way evoked most pithily by James Williamson on Raw Power. "Red Noses, Shit Poses" is a completely manic assault with boat-rocking dynamics that crackle with man-overboard intensity courtesy of some maddening drum rolls and one of those riffs that weaves through several sections of heightening frenzy. Just when you think it peaks, it goes a little further, and that's the mark of all great rock, from the Beatles to Veruca Salt. Singer Biff Malibu owes a little something to Blue Cheer's Dickie Peterson as well as to Tyner and Bon Scott of AC/DC. Speaking of which, Highway to Hell dynamics figure into "Rip-Off Strasse." "Exit at Gate Zero" is a manifesto of top order that proves these dingoes can compete toe to toe with their brethren, the Copters, for the title of best current rock band in the world.

Also on Sub Pop are the Yo Yos. They hail from England, so they're a great deal ginchier than Gluecifer, but in their own way no less effective. While the former evoke the grit of classic 70s punk and metal, the Yo Yos are more new wave. "Home From Home" throbs with Cars "Magic"-style dynamics and the kind of anthemic propensity and totally loaded production values of classic Cheap Trick. If American radio programmers weren't such total pussies, this could actually be a hit. Gleefully embracing the cursing-down-the-motorway spirit of late-70s pop-punkers like the Buzzcocks, as well as the irreverent tradition of everyone from the Move to the Mekons, the Yo Yos are as symptomatic of a return to basics as Gluecifer. Summer's here and the time is right.

Joe S. Harrington