To be honest, finding myself in possession of a copy of The Bluetones new album was a little like finding an old, sherbert-lemon in the inside pocket of a jacket I hadn’t worn since Brit-pop began its terminal slide into the archives during the back-end of ’96. A bit sticky, not unpleasant, sweet even, yet try though I might, I was still not quite able to put my finger on how it had come to be there or whether I had ever really liked them that much in the first place. In fact, I hadn’t really thought about The Bluetones since that wistful hobo of a tune, ‘Slight Return’ came creeping out of the alleys and into our bruised collective hearts back in late ’95. In fact I only remember the name of their second album, ‘Return To The Last Chance Saloon’ because it interested me just how many ‘returns’ this fairly anonymous Hounslow band were going to have. The band’s first album, ‘Expecting to Fly’ pretty much passed me by, I’m afraid, although subsequent groundwork tells me that it was one of only a handful of debut albums to enter the charts and Number 1. But in the words of a late (though sadly not overlooked) Monkees record: ‘that was then, this is now’.
So what’s changed? Well they’re no longer with either Fierce Panda Records or Superior Quality Recordings, they’re with Cooking Vinyl, a label not unknown to pick up and dust down careworn bands of the 80s and 90s and drag them back kicking and screaming into a bemused new century. The label also seems happy to have its bands pursue their own creative trajectory, often allowing them to return to their roots without fear of ridicule or contempt. And this is what you have: ten or so tracks that show Hounslow’s finest at their punchy and chirpy best. Those lightly skipping melodies, cheeky ironies and cheerful dilemmas are back in abundance on tracks like, ‘Wasn’t I Right About You?’ ‘Surrendered’, ‘The King Of Outer Space’, and ‘My Neighbours House’. In fact you have to ask yourself if anything gets Mark Morris and his chums down. You could probably hold him up by his heels and dangle him precariously from a 20th storey window and make him watch the torture and rape of every female member of his family and I bet he’d still be boasting that same cheeky smile of hopeless resignation upon his face. Not that it’s all puppy dogs’ tails and snails, mind. ‘The Last Song But One’ – beyond its lightly ironic façade – is a tuneful little torch-carrier of melancholy, as is the tinkling geometry and spirals of the acoustic, ‘Hope and Jump’ and ‘Fade In/Fade Out (written for his Little Britain/Cross-Channel chum, David Williams).
Personally I’d place this album somewhere between ‘Argybargy’ era Squeeze and the later salty offerings of its lynchpin, Glen Tilbrook, in that there’s a delicate country, flatpicking feel to much of the material on it.
Like I’ve said, a bit of a sherbert-lemon, but providing you’ve got the patience to actually prise it from its wrapper, it yields no small amount of vintage Brit-Poppin’ pleasure. The Bluetones: many happy returns