sound of the suburbs

Regular readers will know that it is rare that I post a whole album as one of the good things about Cd's is that much more old and rare albums are available than in the good old days of vinyl, downloading services have in the last year accelerated this phenomenon with certain titles now only available as downloads, the important point being that they are available and I do not consider it to be the place of serious music bloggers to post whole albums that are still commercially obtainable UNUSED. Every once in a while I will see an album sitting on my shelves and an Amazon and Google search will only drag up the second hand dealers, this was the case with The Shamen's 1999 album 'In Gorbachev We Trust'. The album is a snapshot of the band in transition between the 60's influenced psychedelic guitar rock and the full blown hip hop rave house nightmare that was to trouble the worlds charts. I am no great fan of what the band went on to become much preferring this very indie and DIY nature of things where the swirling and at times angry stabbing guitars were still present along with the newer elements of sampled and electronically created sounds. They were by no means the only band working in this new area that would become labeled indie dance, probably their closest contemporary was Pop Will Eat Itself another guitar band that got bit by the machine bug and to such good effect! The album's title sums up a feeling of hope that was prevalent at the time, the arms race was as good as finished, the USSR was opening up and the Berlin wall was soon to become history and for the first time since WWII the eastern bloc was no longer being portrayed as the baddies. Interestingly enough one of the album's strongest songs 'Jesus Loves America' is a very scary warning concerning religious fundamentalism that unfortunately was to become a reality with George Bush appearing to take orders directly from him above. All in all a very pleasing album, no need for me to rabbit on about it, a right click and save as and it can be yours.


P.S. The album includes a Nesmith/Goffin/King composition that was originally recorded by the Monkeys,