LaRM day 16 (Arab Strap-Archers of Loaf)

So, here we go, lots more Arab Strap, starting with 1998's Philophobia. Well, as the title suggests, it's more bleak examinations how attempts to forge real relationships are doomed to failure. Musically Philiophobia is a leap forward from The Week Never Starts Round Here, it's much crisper and concentrated, and there's a real sense of purpose and clarity to the tunes this time round. There's even, gasp, some melody. It's all still dour as all get-out though, and lyrically Aidan Moffat has refined his mumbled horror show of low-rent life, but it still feels just too trite. I really think that the whole thing would have benefited enormously by having lyrics that didn't so obviously and, frankly, tediously suit the music. And the same goes for follow-up, Elephant Shoe (1999), although to be fair, there are finally a few chinks of light showing through the misery and the whole record reaps great rewards from not doing the same thing all over again (granted the change is minimal both lyrically and musically, but it's enough to evidence a tonal shift). In my opinion Elephant Shoe is probably as good as Arab Strap ever got and it really is a fine record. Then we skip a few albums that I haven't got, to their final effort, The Last Romance (2005). On the whole this is a very different beast to the earlier records, it's a lot brisker, livelier, energetic, while still being bloody grim. It's certainly an easier listen than the first three albums but I'm not sure that makes it better, and although it draws you in much more readily, I don't think it bears comparison with Elephant Shoe.

Now here's something very different - it's the Talking Heads-alike Arcade Fire, starting off with the self-titled EP from 2003. This is, I assume, some well-recorded demo songs, as it doesn't have the rigorous intensity of the albums and there are some spooky cues as to just where the influences lie - why does Regine Chassagne do a funny Dawn French style ("shhh, be kwy-at") Bjork impression for instance? A couple of the songs here are pretty forgettable ('Old Flame', 'Woodlands National Anthem') but the rest really are fantastic, giving a clear indication of what grandstanding would follow with a little bit more cash and studio time at their disposal. It's no surprise that they would revisit 'No Cars Go' later on, it really is a cracking tune. Obviously there's not much to say about Funeral (2004) that hasn't been said by everybody in the world. It's a fabulous, emotionally draining but ultimately uplifting record which really does capitalise on its absurdly grand ambitions. It really should be utterly laughable because it's so earnest and so big, but it isn't laughable, it's wonderful. One negative note though, a record so brutally overexposed can't sustain the passage of time that it would otherwise have managed with less constant trumpeting, and to listen to it now one can't help but hear a record that weirdly doesn't quite match the insanely high opinion one used to hold of it.

For me, that's the highlight been and gone because I really can't get on with The Neon Bible (2007). For a start its title is too revealing and suggestive of a surprising lack of imagination or internal logic. One of the things that made the Arcade Fire so special, I think, was the sense that despite influences showing themselves, it felt as if the band existed in their own right, in a kind of insular and inward looking universe which resonated with the listener's without actually crossing over it in any way. Naming their second album after a novel (referred to as a "coincidence" by Win Butler - yeah, right) gave the lie to that idea and meant that the anguished and strained emotional pretence of The Neon Bible seemed to me to be something of a put on, an act. The church organs and miserablist song titles seem like schtick to me and I find the whole dirgy record something of a chore to listen to. The Suburbs (2010) is a real step back up in my opinion but if anything it demonstrates just how far away from Funeral the band are now, and there is still the lingering sense of a kind of "give the audience what they want" about it. There are some fantastic songs on The Suburbs but it certainly does not need to go on for more than an hour and, a bit like the crushing feeling when REM became unlistenable, I miss the feeling that there were millions of people around the world, all exactly the same, but all feeling that this was their band because only they understood.

And finally it's a record by previous Pavement rip-off merchants Archers of Loaf. It's their second, Vee Vee from 1995, and it's clear that the Pavement comparisons from the first album had stung a bit because, although still boasting plenty of Pavementisms, Vee Vee is very different. From the terribly corny cover photo of young woman with car to the hard rock stylings of the songs, this is not really your bog-standard wannabe indie fare. But something very odd is happening with this stuff, because, just as the cover photo is taken from a very peculiar angle, the rock songs are full of really strange staggering, stumbling guitar work and there's a really singular idea of what "rock" is supposed to be like. The end result is a weirdly endearing and really interesting and likeable record, that far surpasses what seemed likely to follow Icky Mettle.

And there were have it. Tomorrow there will be lots of Arctic Monkeys. Them was good days at the Brit School, with little Kenzie with his beaming face.

LaRM day 15 (Apples in Stereo-Arab Strap)

YAY! Massively Beach Boys influenced pop day! It's the Apples in Stereo for the duration and we begin with Fun Trick Noisemaker (1995). This is a bubbling, fizzing, pop-bomb, lively, brisk, guileless and totally, like, super-fun. If it's cheering up you're in need of, Fun Trick Noisemaker will work every time, it's a lovely example of how indie-rock can be as uplifting as any chart-bothering pop rubbish and it marked the beginning of a run of great studio albums. However, before the next one, they released a compilation of early singles and compilation tracks called Science Faire (1996) which although interesting tends to sound too muddily recorded and hasn't got the spirit of the albums. The next album proper is Tone Soul Evolution (1997) which has a slightly more subdued tone in general compared to Fun Trick Noisemaker, but in some ways varying the mood works well and it sounds like there is more confidence in Robert Schneider's songwriting. The pop songs are still jaunty and on the whole it's a great record. Then we have another variation on the theme with 1999's Her Wallpaper Reverie, which has some great pastiches of various 60's bands (some of which even stand up next to the Dukes of Stratosphear's expert pastiches, particularly the late-Beatles mockery of 'Strawberryfire', and it also includes various brief little sound experiments, the like of which would become more prevalent on later Apples in Stereo albums.

The 7" of 'Everybody Let Up' is a good indication of what's to come, being a solidly written, cheerful pop song, and the next album, The Discovery of a World Inside the Moone (2000), is the real peak for me. This is the first time that the band actually sound completely unique, without the obvious influence of their chosen forbears glaring through. There is no room here for any sonic experimentation either, this is simply great pop songs start to finish. The production is much cleaner, the instrumentation more confident and the hyperactive Schneider manages to keep the songs from running away from him at last and the whole album is another glorious example of a record which demands the windows open and the sun streaming in, any time of the year. Schneider clearly felt that things had got too relaxed and 2002's Velocity of Sound is appropriately named. These less-than-3-minute songs race by in a frenzied flash and while it's a great pop rush it leaves you feeling a bit unfulfilled when it's sped off into the distance, and I can't help but feel the lack of the invention and playfulness of Discovery of a World. There was a long hiatus, presumably to calm down and get some breath back (I saw them play at the Spitz when they were touring Velocity of Sound, and to say that they were lively would be a gross understatement), and 2007 saw the release of New Magnetic Wonder, which to my mind (and apparently nobody else's) was quite a significant step backwards, leaning towards the fiddling about with funny noises that threatened to overtake the songs back in the Her Wallpaper Reverie days and leaving sugar-rush pop songs mostly on the back burner. There are 24 songs here, of which 10 are 10-50 second bits of fun noises, and where before the records felt a bit like you were at a party, New Magnetic Wonder is more like being in a pop laboratory. Again, it's a fine record (and there really are some great songs - 'Same Old Drag' is like a pumped-up Phoenix) with some great moments, but I miss the fun times, dammit.

And to round up it's Arab Strap's first album, The Week Never Starts Round Here (1997). I have always had mixed feelings about Arab Strap. I sort of feel as if it's really just too easy to tell sordid tales about sleazy lives boozing and shagging. Aidan Moffett does have a cool turn of phrase every now and again but on the whole it's just a kind of humourless and fundamentally uninteresting attempt at a Scottish Bukowski-ism. Or should that be Bukowski-ishness? Who knows? Anyway, musically I've always felt that there's a similar problem, one or two really good ideas don't an entire career make (or in Arab Strap's case, an entire album). And I think it was an interesting idea to have a sort of reedy, threadbare, ramshackle folkishness over a subdued drum machine while somebody rambles on in the background. But, again, it's all too easy. It's like reading a novel by a fifteen year old - all guilt-ridden fantasy of a lives ill-lived and I can't help but suspect, with scarcely a scintilla of truth to it all, which would be fine, except that it all sounds so pat. This all sounds like a basic slag-off I suppose, but I do think there are some great ideas in here but the first album particularly lacks any sense of direction or purpose (deliberately perhaps) and that makes it very difficult to find any reason to really engage with it.

And that's it for another day. Lots more, and better, Arab Strap to start tomorrow. Gloooomy.

LaRM day 14 (Annuals-Appleseed Cast)

Let's get lively with today's first offering, which is Be He Me (2006), the first album by Annuals. Here's a record that showed more promise than was ever delivered on - Be He Me is a truly exuberant dose of devil-may-care experimental indie rock that is doing a lot more weird stuff than appears at first listen. On the face of it, these are pretty straightforward upbeat indie rock tunes with a lively sense of humour, but underneath the songs have some very peculiar arrangements and some great funny noises. The album plays a little like a song cycle, almost as a kind of off-kilter lo-fi indie answer to XTC's glorious Skylarking. I don't want to overstate it - it's not XTC good, obviously, and the second half drags a bit, but it really is a great record, full of surprises and clever ideas. And it's a real windows-open-mid-summer kind of record, a kind of anti-Jack Johnson, if you will.

Next we would have had Sway (1992) by Antenna, who were the band that John Strohm formed after Juliana Hatfield called time on the Blake Babies. Strohm's songs were always wetter than a baby's nappy and Sway continued that fine tradition. I don't know if any of you ever heard the songs that John Bancroft and I played on with Neil Luckett's Wagtails, but it's wetter even than those. In any event, this is academic because once again, the curse of the utter incomprehensible uselessness (ie corporate control) of the internet means that this one is another no-show.

Eek, get your gloom on, it's the temporary career-making I Am a Bird Now (2005) by Antony & the Johnsons. I am still unsure whether I really like this album or am basically indifferent to it. I feel I should like it more than I really do perhaps. 'Hope There's Someone' is a fabulous tune but the album opens with it and never reaches the same heights again. I think it's the old problem, there's so much to admire but so little to love here. It's certainly a heartfelt piece of work and it's very much an emotional piece but it still manages to leave me a little cold, even a bit bored. Antony Hegarty's tremulous voice is something of an acquired taste, but the sparse string and piano arrangements leave the whole experience a little like reading a stranger's diary in which there is some foreboding but no actual events to keep you interested.

This time let's start stroking our chins in appreciation of two faces of the Aphex Twin. First up is the second bunch of super minimalist ambient experimentation, Selected Ambient Works, Vol. 2 (1994). There's over two and a half hours of this stuff and if you're seriously monged out on drugs then I expect it's amaaaaazing, but to be honest if you're not (and I never am) then it's either a) really soothing, b) intensely annoying or c) excellent for nodding off, all depending on your mood. As I listened to it today I hovered very much between a) and b). The thing is, when I was in Bristol, way back in the day, I used to pretend to absolutely love ambient techno. I don't think I did really love it, in fact I think the truth is that I could scarcely even tolerate it, but I suppose I must have thought it made me appear interesting. I suspect it was probably no more than the equivalent of growing a little goatee and reading Sartre very publicly in cafes, specifically so that people might think you're clever. Anyway, I digress. Selected Ambient Works, Vol. 2 is very smart, intruiging, elusive, enigmatic and deathly dull, remarkably all at the same time, which is its best trick by far. Then we've got the R&S compilation of early club oriented tracks, Classics (1994). This is a far livelier affair consisting as it does of some seriously banging art-techno. You can't really dance to this nonsense, but you can nod to it and look wise. "Smash hit" 'Digeridoo' has aged badly, in fact a lot of this stuff has (most of the ambient stuff strangely hasn't), and it does make me look back with both fondness and regret to the time. 'Analogue Bubblebath' still makes me chuckle though.

And because Classics is so long and Selected Ambient Works, Vol. 2 is so incredibly long, that's all we have time for this week. So, back again on Monday for the next round of whatever the letter A has to offer. Toodle-oo!

PS, tell a lie, I've had time to just get one more in - Mare Vitalis (2000) by Appleseed Cast. This is another nice little angular bit of arty-emo, all spirit and emotion with some tricksy tempo messing and quirky guitarwork. It's another one that often gets cited as being highly influential without anyone seeming to have actually ever heard it. It's a very nice record and a pleasing way to end the week.

LaRM day 13 (...And You Will Know Us By the Trail Of Dead-Anniversary)

Art-rock! It's a double dose of ...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead this morning. First up, the eponymous debut album (1997). Cripes, was it really nearly 15 years ago that this came out? That's nuts, I would have said maybe 8 or 9 at the most. But then that's because I refuse to accept that I'm getting old. Anyway, it's a great calling card of an album, taking some angular frenzy from Sonic Youth, chucking in a whole load of melody in a Pavement style, and mixing them up with a bit of old school rocking. It's great stuff, maybe one or two tunes outstay their welcome, but on the whole, yep, it's great stuff. Second album Madonna (1999) is better in some ways, worse in others. There's more attention to songs, making the tunes tighter and less obviously post-rock indebted, but if anything the dynamics of late-80's Sonic Youth are even more prevalent. The problem with the album is that when the songs don't really work I find myself wishing they'd do a bit more of the extended rambling to give them some flavour (there is some though to be fair - 'Aged Dolls' rambles on pretty well). When the songs do work though, they're blistering.

Next up we have Feels (2005) by Animal Collective. Now, I absolutely loathe this record. I think it's abysmally bad, almost disgracefully so. It feels like a very, very bad joke to me. All the laughable bouncy vocal lines and irritating twittering noises just seem like something Chris Morris might have made up to take the piss out of hip kids. In fact irritating is the word, because everything about this record is a nuisance - every element of the sound of it is annoying, the fact that it was hyped is annoying, the very strong sense that the band think they've done something radically amazing is annoying. I've seen occasional references to early Mercury Rev as an influence, but that does Mercury Rev a remarkable disservice. It really, really sucks big time, I truly hate Feels. Which is why it's such a miracle to me that 2009's Merriweather Post Pavilion is one of the best records of the 2000's. I can scarcely even pinpoint what it is that is different between the records, but where Feels makes me want to cut my own ears off, Merriweather Post Pavilion is a wonderful record. I think one of the key differences is that MPP sounds like the band were concentrating, writing lovely songs, considering how to put them together and how to make the whole thing flow, where Feels sounds like some bored trustafarian college kids sitting about and mucking around. In fact there's such focus in MPP that it's completely absorbing and exhilirating to listen to. It's a fabulous record and one that makes me thrilled every time I hear it. Strange that isn't it? To absolutely hate one record and love another by the same band. I can't work it out, but there it is.

After that post-modern arty fun we have a totally different proposition. It's one of my favourite, and in my opinion one of the most criminally ignored, British bands of the last twenty years, Animals That Swim. I love Englishness in pop music (which is why The Kinks will always be on the top spot for me) and Animals That Swim were thoroughbred, but not in a twee, anachronistic way. The songs are very gentle indie-rock, but imbued with an incredibly affecting sense of quiet melancholy (helped by the inclusion of muted trumpet) and lyrically they are like being in a pub and being told odd second hand stories of the peculiarities of London life (this is more narration than singing anyway). In fact, to me they sound like London turned into song, there's a strong sense of a nostalgia for a handmade way of life that probably nobody has ever lived (trying to make chandeliers out of broken car windows, sitting on broken plastic school chairs on the roof of a cheap flat overlooking the city). The third single, '50 Dresses', is a lovely story of the modest dreams of how a couple might live if they ever got rich, and I believe it got single of the week in the NME, which should have been the start of a glittering career, but as is often the way, no such luck. Workshy (1994), the first album is a little bit dense (the production work is clearly on the cheap side) and the songwriting is a little eccentric, but there are some fabulous songs here ('Smooth Steps', 'Pink Carnations').

I think the band really hit their peak with second album I Was the King, I Really Was the King (1996). The romance of normal life is heightened here, and I think the band's reputation for being almost permanently drunk (I saw them at the Free Butt in Brighton at the time and they were certainly enjoying themselves then) actually adds to the attraction of the kind of lifestyles that the records depict. Unfortunately I can't say much here about either I Was the King, or the fabulous follow-up, Happiness from a Distant Star (2001), because amazingly neither of them are legitimately on the internet and I've only got them on vinyl. Suffice it to say that both albums are really special, certainly to me at least. Finally for Animals That Swim we've got a compilation of album tracks called Faded Glamour (2004) which also has a bonus disc of B-sides and odds and ends which is interesting but doesn't add much to the greatness of the albums. Just as an aside, it's worth mentioning that after the band split up Hugh Barker co-wrote an excellent book called 'Faking It' looking into the meaning of "authenticity" in pop music. It's really very interesting, if you get a chance you should have a read.

Penultimately for today we've got a healthy dose of pop music with Annie's Anniemal (2005). Now, I know we were all supposed to pretend that we liked this record back in the day but to be honest I've got no problem with admitting that I still love it. Every now and then I really feel a bit of proper pop and this is how it's done as far as I'm concerned. It's a bit brittle, a bit icy, it's certainly unconcerned with whether you rate it or not and that's just how it should be. We all know and like the tragic back story and in a way the record is given a bit of extra bite as a result. It's slick and is convinced of it's own cool class (and in some ways it's getting less corny as it gets older, rather than more) and I really like it.

And finally we have the second album by post-punk, emo-ish outfit The Anniversary, which is called Your Majesty (2002). This is a strange record, it can't settle on any particular style, one minute flirting with spiky punk-pop, the next doing a kind of lo-fi prog. A lot of it works really well though and there are some nice pop hooks in amongst it all. You can see that excitable bands like Los Campesinos may have taken a lot of cues from Your Majesty.

Once again that wraps it up for today. Let's have a whole load more "A" larks tomorrow, shall we?

LaRM day 12 (American Music Club-Timothy Andres)

Man, I have been in a terrible mood today (people make me SO angry) so it was only right and proper that we began the day by finishing off the American Music Club extravaganza - after ten years of solo albums and side projects, Eitzel reconvened AMC for what was supposed to be one last go round and they released one of the many anti-George Bush albums of the 2000's, Love Songs for Patriots (2004). It's a good album, working from the best parts of San Francisco and adding an unexpected layer of righteous anger, which I wouldn't really have imagined Eitzel to be able to pull off but which actually seems to have made his songwriting punchier and more direct. There's still time for some slower, gloomier numbers ('Another Morning' is lovely, but it's back to his old obsession with the death of a close friend), and there isn't really any particular change of approach, such that it sounds like simply another AMC album, but that still puts it head and shoulders above most other bands who try this sort of thematic stuff (once again, I'm looking at you The National). Despite efforts on the part of Eitzel and co-founder Vudi to continue to work together under a new band name, no record label would release anything or let them tour unless they kept the AMC name, so for (really this time) one last time the band came together in 2008 to make The Golden Age. The cover of this album is terrible, but the songs are some of the best Eitzel has written since Mercury. It's a more restrained affair than Love Songs for Patriots and it benefits all the more for it. It's the quiet version of AMC and in many ways the songs are more similar to those from Eitzel's solo albums, and if anything The Golden Age proves how much of a collaborative creation AMC always were, rather than Eitzel's backing band. There are some truly lovely songs here and the album marks a much more apt end to a fabulous band than the close that seemed to happen back in 1994.

Now, on to something very different. I don't really know how to talk about the next record, partly because I think I'm going to elicit blasts of derision from everybody I know. It's Tori Amos' Boys for Pele (1996). Obviously this is a truly terrible record. I mean absolutely terrible. However, I think it has an invaluable role because I think Boys for Pele has as much of an influence on Joanna Newsom's last two albums as Joni Mitchell and Kate Bush. In fact I don't think the world would have been nearly as ready to accept Ys and Have One On Me if Boys for Pele had never been made. Honestly, it's all here - the songs that seem formless and then grow almost out of themselves, the lyrical obfuscation, the ceaseless riffing off Kate Bush, even some of the melodic phrasing that Newsom uses is set out here. The key difference is that when Amos does this stuff it comes out sounding awful and when Newsom does it, it comes out sounding utterly sublime.

On to more lively things with the sole album by Kim Deal's Breeders-hiatus band The Amps called Pacer (1995). After the Breeders call it quits following the success of Last Splash, Deal formed the Amps to fill in time while sister Kelley got through the heroin cold turkey, and to be honest, as many people would agree, she works better without Kelley hanging around. Pacer is a great album, lo-fi indie rock, that sounds unmistakably like the work of its writer. There's a lot more life and sense of fun to Pacer than Last Splash and the whole album sounds like a weight has been lifted off her shoulders. It's brisk and spiky, and doesn't hang around. Then we've got the 'Tipp City' single, which has a great B-side in 75-second 'Just Like a Briar'.

Next up should be Les Filles Compliquees (1991) by French singer Elisabeth Anais. I bought the tape of this when I was on holiday with my mum and dad and thought that she looked super-cute (Elisabeth Anais, not my mum). I haven't heard it for some years and it has no internet visibility so we'll have to skip it.

Now on to something extremely serious. Well, if not entirely serious then certainly intellectually weighty. It's a couple of albums from each end of Laurie Anderson's career, starting with Big Science (1982). Apparently the New York art community were aghast at Anderson, an established visual artist, releasing a pop record. In retrospect this seems fairly extraordinary bearing in mind how little it would surprise or upset anybody these days. I mean when Turner Prize winner Steve McQueen is making movies about sex addicts for a major film studio, there's not much left to be aghast by in the art world is there? Anyway, it really only serves to prove how ahead of her time Anderson has always been. Big Science is about as far away from a pop record that a pop record could ever get. It is instead a kind of musical treatise on how not to live our lives, a deeply satirical and laconic report from a sort of psychic distance. There is something peculiarly separate about Anderson's records, as if she can see straight through the world and people and their behaviour, but she's reporting what she sees from behind a thick pane of glass. It's even more the case with her last album, Homeland (2010), which is a quite spectacular record, unnerving, disturbing, laugh-out-loud funny and musically quite unbelievable. Again, it seems as if unravelling the world is all too easy, the difficulty is how to report it back. There are many references, some overt, some coded, to the immense stupidity of people and their relationship to the world, but she is never pompous or arrogant, smug or sanctimonious, she clearly includes herself in her analyses. She shouldn't, she's much smarter than the rest of us.

Finally for today it's a bit of modern classical with Timothy Andres' Shy & Mighty (2010). It's a terrible name and it's got a terrible cover (with the pianist himself looking like a failed catalogue ad model trying to look "laid back"). But the record is very different to what one would expect from the outside. It's a relatively generic take on dissonant solo piano, but the fact that it doesn't have the strength of its own conviction to really give it large John Cage style is absolutely to its benefit, because in amongst the tumbling notes and the unpredictable volume shifts are some really lovely melodic lines. There's not much here that to be honest even someone like Rachel Grimes hasn't done before and better, but it does have enough to keep me listening.

And so ends yet another day. Yet another exactly the same day. See you on the other side for another one. Exactly the same. But with a slightly different soundtrack. SEE YA!

LaRM day 11 (American Music Club)

Goddammit, Top Gear, not the snooker (again, thanks Marcus).

So, let's get really fed-up and dig hours and hours and hours of the American Music Club. I should take this opportunity to apologise to EP Garside, because I can clearly remember many, many years ago, him trying to convince me of the merits of United Kingdom and my response was to be very strident in my opinion that it wasn't up to much. I was way wrong. Anyway, after The Restless Stranger yesterday we move up a notch (and down a mood) with 1987's Engine. This is often regarded as another relatively weak entry in the AMC canon but to be honest I absolutely adore it. It appeals so much to the deeply misanthropic misery that I truly am. It's like a soundtrack to a screening of the inside of a despairing and brutally disgusted mind. I feel right at home listening to it. It's still got that late rock, new wavey feel to it, but it's much denser, much heavier than the Restless Stranger and lyrically Eitzel is beginning to strip away the storytelling and to concentrate more on creating mood, and this is a seriously bleak mood. It's great. Next up is California (1988) which starts with a misleadingly upbeat countryish tune, complete with jaunty pedal steel and strangely romantic lyrics. Never fear, we're going down from there with a succession of variously taut and anguished songs, but unlike the two previous albums it is occasionally leavened with some lighter moments. California sets the stall out in many ways for AMC's increasingly eclectic stylistic approach, taking in country, folk, heavy rock, and most things in between, but crucially, the record never sounds like a compilation of stuff, somehow managing to maintain a sense of a unified whole. Unlike the follow-up United Kingdom (1989) which actually is an assortment of scraps and live songs. Quite remarkably though, United Kingdom still works as an album, partly because the whole thing is bleaker than a weekend watching Bergman movies. It is utterly hopeless, scarcely a chink of light is allowed into these tales of failure and unnoticed tragedy but listening to United Kingdom is a challenging and extremely rewarding exercise.

One of the problems with the early AMC albums is that they're all so grim that you can't help feeling that Eitzel takes himself way too seriously. The couple of years off that he took from the band helped to refocus his songwriting and in 1991's Everclear, he finally introduced a clearly ironic tone, and although the record is still a mixed bag of styles, it is a very tightly defined and structured record which, for the first time, sounds like a truly superb album start to finish. On top of which, Eitzel has managed to change his tone lyrically on occasion from crushingly mordant to genuinely heartbreaking. For the most part it's still dismal tales of friends' Aids-related deaths and heroin addictions and alcoholism, but when he takes a step back from the abyss, there is finally some gallows humour and the songs (and the listener) are allowed some space to breathe. For the first time also AMC released an EP in support of the album. The lead song 'Rise' was a deliberately obtuse choice from the album I think, but the EP contains one of Eitzel's greatest songs in 'Chanel No. 5'.

The general consensus seems to be that Everclear was the pinnacle of Eitzel's work, but for my money the best came next with 1993's Mercury, a sprawling, expansive journey through the various miseries of Eitzel's seemingly battered psyche. The songwriting really hits a peak on Mercury with some complex and unexpected arrangements, together with some wilfully self-destructive touches (this being the first album for a major label), and the ironic humour stands out more clearly than ever (single 'Johnny Mathis' Feet' is a grandstanding case in point). It seems that Eitzel was keen that an audience should know that he was well aware of how over-the-top some of his excesses of despair were, but that doesn't impinge on his heightened writing and some of the songs here ('The Hopes and Dreams of Heaven's 10,000 Whores', 'Apology for an Accident') are quite staggering. The album was preceded by two versions of the 'Johnny Mathis' Feet' single, each of which contained some demo versions of album tunes, and followed by the 'Keep Me Around' single which has one of the loveliest, and simplest, songs they ever recorded in 'Memo from Aquatic Park'.

From these heights the only way is down and unfortunately 1994's San Francisco doesn't match up and shows signs of the internal friction that was causing trouble in the band. The album could have done with some pruning and despite containing some fabulous songs ('Love Doesn't Belong to Anyone', 'I Broke My Promise'), it feels lucklustre and unfocussed, lurching from lovelorn balladry to furious amped-up rock in a heartbeat, all the while sounding tired and careworn. It's still a great album, but it feels a long way from Engine and you sense that if the band carried on down this path the songs would just start to fade into the air. Again, the album was bookended by singles, in this case a two-version 'Wish the World Away' which is a fairly brutal rock number with some demos and a couple of decent new songs backing it, and 'Can You Help Me', which is a pretty downbeat song, which ends with an uninspired cover of 'California Dreaming'. It's not a fitting end to the career of one of the most intriguing and vital bands of the 80's and 90's. I guess they didn't think so either because 10 years later they were back for another round, which we'll look at, er, listen to, tomorrow.

See you chaps.