It's A Beautiful Life

It's a bird, it's a plane... it's a MADCHESTER JANGLE POP SUPERGROUP... made up of three freaking famous bassists from bands you love, or should. At first glance, what we have here is a band with a ridorkulous name (yes, it's "Freebase spelled 3-A-S-S") and an album title named for an Ace of Base song. Okay, ha ha, very cheeky... BUT LOOK AT THIS LINEUP. It's friggin PETER HOOK and MANI and ANDY ROURKE. Fucking Madchester-rock-godding it out together. (The inevitable bad news is that this band is already no more, but so it goes.) Not surprisingly, this sounds a lot like New Order... and The Stone Roses... and The Smiths. What's missing, really, with our boys all playing bass (no, seriously -- there are three bass parts on every song), are the vox, done here by Gary Briggs (The Strays). In all fairness, it's hard to compete with Ian Brown or, you know, Morrissey. Still, this is a damn fine record from a triad of Brit pop's founding fathers. Will please anyone into their original bands. Fans will likely be able to tell who's playing which bassline.

*My immediate verbal douche-alert review, as said to DJ PJs during my first listen: "Well, I don't like this any less than I like Johnny Marr's solo stuff." There ya go.

TRACKLIST NOTE: I'm fairly sure tracks 11-13 are mixed up on the back cover. #11 is "Bury Me Standing", #12 is "Sister Surrender" and #13 is "I'm A Believer".

try: 11 (!!), 15, 9, 10, 18, 1, 2, 21
no FCCs

CD 1
*1. stone roses! beamy guitars and contempo poppy soft harmonies. happy new wave.
*2. tight spare percussion & keyboard intro. low-key, midtempo bass in at ~1 min. creamy indieish vox. melodic chorus. nice chord-on keys backdrop & harmonies. tres pleasant.
3. severe, swirly, minor, harsh guitar. chuggy percussion. wall of sound. kinda-hilarious radiohead nod that gets even better when they expose the vox.
4. groovy funk-lite. shrill doubled vox in the chorus. very smooth cool bass. electric alternative. there's something vaguely reminiscent of audioslave going on in here.
5. warm spacey slowish synth-bass. sweeping, soothing. super-80s. "this is not what i am / this is what i've become."
6. "rapist dub", as assessed by dj pjs. hook on vox. kind of wonky reggae-ish creepster jam that sounds a lot like these guys trying to recreate "guns of brixton". umm.
7. chilly indieish vibey guitar over hi-synth. creeepy falsetto vocal riff (a la "i want my mtv") in the chorus. slinky, dark, smooth.
8. dig-in bass, tambourine. classicky in-no-rush rock. speaking of "guns of brixton", this track sort of borrows the lyrics. highway music.
*9. fast and despairing. nice swirling minor guitar. the chorus is a wounded and emotional vamp: i'm hearing "i don't feel like seeing anyone", though others claim "i don't feel like singing anymore". either way, right?
*10. slowish, moody. super new order sitar-tinged bass and atmospheric, spacey padded percussion. there's a little 'elegia' in here. picks up and gets swirly, then pulls back to whistles and 'ooh's. ends with 10 sec on the clock.
**11. fucking perfect jangle rock. minor-tinged, great melodic bass. they manage to pull off a "come with me 'cause i'm the one" vamp that sounds, well, full of conviction. oh, this is good. stone roses good.
12. wall of sound. bashy steady drums. fuzzy funky happy rock.
13. classic 80s new wave bassline (think: the cure). acoustic strumming and simple happy melody. basically "pictures of you", but more uptempo and less interesting.

CD 2 (Bonus Disk)
14 / 1. clicking, tocking, chiming & winding of clocks. cuts off abruptly. why.
*15 / 2. great, great instrumental. midtempo, moody. pomp snare and sidewindy bass. guitar clangs in with the same chords as bowie's 'new killer star'... which is a good thing. and then it layers on. wa-wa effects, really nice high synth triplets, violin-style harmonies. beautifully crafted and never boring.
16 / 3. tight-snap dark country-tinged alternative. crystal clear steel strums and spacey, muddy bass under lyricless harmony vox. jupiter synth.
17 / 4. down-n-dirty dig-in bass underlies the track. classic rock feel. handclaps. repetitive, but nice layering.
*18 / 5. supa-rapid techno lite. whipfast melody-as-beat, swirled notes and tinny percussion. i kinda like it. surprise! powerful vocals at :45 to end.
19 / 6. sound effects track. ruddering, spare carnival/midway toots, robot voice. abrupt end.
20 / 7. remix of #2. joy divisiony vox. the instrumental version is the winner, but here's a melody and so on if you feel the need.
*21 / 8. remix of #4. hilarious gakking synth, dubsteppy, deep deep spoken vox. hella forbidden island. like an awful jungle-gods-themed porno... except it's a mashup of LOTS of famous quotations. actually great. i, uh, wouldn't play this afterschool.
22 / 9. remix of #2. dancey electro. nice addition of ufo synth.
23 / 10. remix of #4. watery froglike synth. vamped vox.
24 / 11. remix of #2. deep & emo. trembly tambourine. fuzzy choral vox… then lots of vocal effects over hand-drums and synth.
25 / 12. remix of #2. same as #24, but no vox.
26 / 13. remix of #2. same as #24, but vocals ONLY. i'm not into it.