After introducing itself through the pair of contemporary mod-revival-laden compilations (Shake! & Shout! … reviewed elsewhere on PopDiggers pages) and a Mod-Aid charity single, here’s the first bunch of equally MODernistic EPs, bringing back the swingin’ times.
Surprisingly enough, the best of them all, happens to be LONG TALL SHORTY’s (another) come back release, being (IMHO) the best thing they’ve ever done by far, providing us with the raving piece of punky title tune, with some wild slide passages, worthy of the “misunderstood” Glenn Campbell. Of the “b-sides”, Call Me is another freakbet-ish attempt at the “smokestack”-kind of r’n’b, while A Girl Like You is an organ-driven stompin’ power-house of a tune (NOTE: beware of the mixed up tracklisting)
Of the young ones, THE MARKSMEN are the ones that suit me the best, with their title tune being The Creeps/Strollers-kind of a Swedish school of cool (video included!). They end the EP just as impressively with the garagey blue-eyed soul of Hang On, sounding kinda like The Rascals-gone-punky, while All This Time is more like an unfinished, but quite promising demo.
As they put it themselves, THE BRESSLAWS are “a bunch of mods playing in a garage band”, fronted by the local vicar (!?) (and former “John” of The Beatles tribute band The Bootles), “preaching” the usual Medway heritage. In accordance with their own definition, the EP opens with the title tune’s combination of Britsike quirkiness and American mid’60s garage, which is the recipe also used for the following Moonlit Night, while the balance is being lost in favour of the latter, in Backfist Baby, by way of The Sonics’ “witchy” riff.
Being produced by Ian Page of Secret Affair and engineered by Mark Harwood (In The City – The Jam), the expectations towards GRASP were set quite high. Sadly, I must admit that they don’t really fulfil them to the extent that I was hoping for, though they do deliver a decent stab at late’60s/early’70s kind of a Stones-ish rawk-out with the title tune, and if the first line of Sitting In The Back Room, being “She said …”, doesn’t sound suggestive enough, I might as well point out that what you’ll get is a “revolving” piece of psych, with an additional Small Faced post-mod “afterglow”.
Considering all the above, Biff Bang Pow is doing it’s best in preserving the mod appreciation society!
[Released by Biff Bang Pow 2005]
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