Perhaps inevitably, the reformed WONDER STUFF haven't received the easiest of critical rides with their recent, 'comeback' album "Escape From Rubbish Island". This writer certainly wouldn't subscribe to it being as redundant as many would have us think, though it is a rather uneven affair that runs out of steam after a promising first half. Not that I imagine Miles Hunt is remotely fazed by less than positive critical feedback anyway: he's still a loveably lippy bugger who cares more than you might imagine and - importantly - still has lots to say and an eloquently vitriolic way of saying it.
However, this new maxi-single brings us the good, the bad and the mystifying in terms of The Wonder Stuff's continued existence. The good is represented by the presence of the song "Escape From Rubbish Island" : the album's title song and aguably its' greatest achievement. It's a livid and convincing broadside against Mr. Blair and the state of the nation in general (sample lyric: "Cool Britannia's bluff, we were led by fools/ four decades on and The Beatles rule") allied to gnarly guitars and a suitably rancorous rhythm track.
"Bile Chant," too, sounds initially like another reason to welcome Miles and co with open arms. It's another maltreated rocker with restrained, strafe-ing guitars and Mark McCarthy's Jah Wobble-style depth charge basslines. He's clearly a belatedly worthy successor to the late Bass Thing and gives the band some welcome bottom end they never really had in the past.
Despite this, though, the choice of "Bile Chant" as arguably the main track here suggests confusion and bet hedging, especially as Miles' opening invective ("Who was it said I was fucked at birth"?) has the F-word fatally removed - not just bleeped, but actually removed - which seems to defeat the object. That's the mystifying aspect of this exercise. Yes yes, I know it's in the name of being radio friendly, but your reviewer suspects a similar record company campaign along the lines of XTC'S "Respectable Street" when Andy Partridge was told to change several words ("Abortion," "sex position" and "retching") only for the single to then limp to no.71. Somehow, I suspect a similar failure may befall "Bile Chant" because, for all its' merits, it's a bloody odd song to choose for a single.
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But it's inspiring compared to the three Johnny Dope (Alabama 3) remixes that make up the remainder of the maxi-single. None add more than bluster and trickery and you come away wondering why Miles and co. bothered. Yeah, if this was the summer of 1990 then this would be hailed as cutting edge, but haven't we really done this indie-guitar-band-go-dancefloor-remix thing to death and beyond these days? I dunno, but these remixes sound merely dreary and unneccessary to me.
So there you have it. As you'll hear, The Wonder Stuff have enough to say to justify their return to the public arena and certainly a modicum of the swagger of yore, even if it is (inevitably) a pissed-off mid-30s version of their patented snotty confidence. Whether it'll be enough to sustain another lengthy existence and pick up a younger breed of fan, though, remains debatable.
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