sound of the suburbs

A London based answer to the Madchester scene, My Jealous god were formed in 1989 initially as a means to finish off a demo tape for guitarist/singer Jim Melly. As with many other bands from this period Jim Melly's indie roots were shaken when he started clubbing and took aboard new dance related influences. Thanks to the demo tape they signed on with Geoff Travis's Rough Trade label. A first single, 'Every Thing About You' was released to favorable response. Hardly surprising really with it's addictive spiraling wha wha guitar and a filthy dirty bass line that just insisted that you move and grove to it, the vocals were well down in the mix and sound rather stoned, and all this was over looping backward tracking rhythms. Not bad at all, true it didn't set the charts on fire but it got the band noticed.
There finest hour was to be their second single 'Pray' which is considered to be an indie dance crossover classic till this day. This time the vocals are more present in the mix which is a good thing as Melly's voice is a pleasant one, again those shuffling rhythms with a welcome recurrent guitar riff. Personally I think there are shades of the Charlatans which were to became even more obvious an their third and final single 'Easy'. By this stage they had been picked up by a major label, Fontana, I can only presume that an album was in the pipeline though it was never to see the light of day and so My Jealous God called it quits after only three singles, another band that could have ..........................Who Knows? Needless to say their is nothing commercially available so check out the second hand dealers. The last thing I heard of Jim Melly's where abouts was in 2003 when he published a book on the Faces.