Sometimes when a record has been made with as much enthusiasm as this one obviously has, one can get the impression that it was more fun to make than it is to listen to. In other words, there’s been too much self-indulgence and not enough self-control.
That’s certainly not the case here. While each player gets their own little moment in the sun, everything is tightly reigned in so that it packs just enough of a punch and no more. There’s real drive at the heart of this record. It is as though these boys have been mainlining the spirit of bands like The Cure and The Skids instead of concentrating on their GCSEs. Burning riffs and thumping beats crash happily out of the speakers in one joyous, driven mess, exploding all at once all around you.
Real raw poetry bleeds out from in between the sparks and the cracks also. These tales haven’t just been imagined or created, they’ve actually been lived. Mini epics of musical cinema play out in the mind’s eye as the sounds unfold. Like all great music, you get lifted away on to a trippy higher plain and it feels just wonderful. This is a band that has emerged fully formed, with a true voice of their own.
And they know how to use it, too. The result is a record teeming with epic tales of everyday folk. Like Del Amitri before them, Bubblewrap Holocaust believes in glorying in the banalities of everyday life and in amping up the voice of the Ordinary Man. These songs are about people like you and I who, come what may, just get their heads down and get on with everyday life. Rather than making the error of condescending to these people, Bubblewrap Holocaust have acknowledged them instead as the audience and played to them, to great effect.