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REVIEWS:
Melody
Maker Dec. 15-21, 1999 Just what the world needs: a French tribute to flamboyant Seventies football manager "Big Mal" Allison. Surely the music/football crossover bandwagon has trundled too far. Er, no, actually. Grand Mal are in fact unashamedly retro New York sleazers whose favorite facet of Seventies revivalism would appear to be primetime Rolling Stones-a cocksure swagger and effortless wasted-ness imbuing every single track. They inhabit a world of romantic squalor, cheap smack, seedy, stained hotel rooms and wraparound shades, all symbols of their nihilistic non-manifesto that's most succinctly summarized in "Stay In Bed" (Let's get drunk on cheap wine/Let's stay in bed"). The early Nineties is as modern as things get here, coming in the form of the "Honey's Dead"-era Mary Chain grind of "Sixteen" and the Swervedriveresque-but-still-good "I'm In Trouble". Things only go wrong when they go all Semisonic-plodding on "Picture You". "Malediction" isn't going to win any prizes for gound-breaking originality, but then as Travis have discovered, that isn't what sells records. Pas mal, as the French say. Abit like? Royal Trux with a bloke singing. -
Phil Mongredien |
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