There’s a chink of distorted guitar, some background clatter, then a lazy chugging riff and a sedated, sarcastic lyric: “Wire is coming back again/Elastica got sued by them/When Michael Jackson dies/We’re covering Blackbird”. Classic Courtney Taylor (or Taylor-Taylor as it is to you now) behaviour. But bah! We’ve been short-changed! Then in steams ‘We Used To Be Friends’. A veritable flexibly-legged summer anthem (with a capital ‘EM) perhaps, one of the best in the Warhol-party-jukebox, and with the keyboards nudged up a notch maybe, but the guitars still go CHANG, you still want to bounce, nay pogo. Where’s the MkII we’ve been promised?! The one that supposedly dragged its arse in out of the sunshine, into the disco, under the neon lights and switched drug preferences? Even track 3 ‘Plan A’ wraps the wispy electronic tinkering in a distorted country lick.
But it’s just a case of taking time to warm up, or down. And you’ll be grateful for those flares from a Dandy past, they’re what save the rest of the record from becoming a flat indulgence. The first all-out 80s workout on here, ‘The Dope (Wonderful You)’, may suffer from being about the weakest on the album, a sub-George Michael ‘Outside’ bass-heavy sleaze. But it would be an unfair reflection if you stopped there. You might think they’ve got a nerve with the album’s opening lyric – and they probably have, it’s them all over – but they stop it’s arrowhead from turning around and heading straight back for two reasons. Firstly Nick Rhodes is at the desk for them, bringing with him endorsement and blessing. Secondly, they just can’t help sounding like themselves.
Just without so many volume notches on the guitar amps (that’s so passé). ‘The Dandy Warhols Love Almost Everyone’ (title!) for instance sounds just like Duran Duran doing ‘Horse Sized Pills’ (off the mega ’13 Tales From Urban Bohemia’). Still as druggy and half-conscious as ever ‘You Were The Last High’, aside from being one of the most soaringly fab tunes on here, is an atmospherically full New Order/Duran Duran amalgamation. ‘Insincere Because I’ is a bit My Bloody Valentine and ‘I Am Sound’ nabs The Cure’s piano, so it’s not all 1-dimensional plagiarism. But just in case you’d forgotten what you were listening to, ‘Hit Rock Bottom’ is an irresistible half-speed ‘Every Day Should Be A Holiday’. It’s a different record, yes. That you get. And maybe that bit harder to love. But it’s them stripped down, and vulnerable because of it, showing they can still kick it.