The Wildhearts - Earth Vs. The Wildhearts
EastWest Records
Hard Rock
12 songs (49:21)
Release year: 1993
Official Website, EastWest Records
Reviewed by Charles
Archive review
Who could possibly not love the band responsible for violently entering and trashing Kerrang!!!! Magazine's headquarters?

Freaks, that’s who. Dangerous, disturbed freaks. But it seems like there’s a lot of them about, because only their existence can explain why The Wildhearts never became the world’s biggest rock band. Their mid-90s crown was usurped on this side of the Atlantic by the summery Britpop of some of our teenage years, and on the other side by turgid post-grunge shit made by flatulent, overpaid crybabies.

When I saw them live they introduced themselves as “the Bay City Rollers of heavy metal”, which kind of does the job. Earth Vs the Wildhearts, their debut, and almost certainly their best album, is indeed a truly fiendish construction; taking the most glorious pop-rock melodies, watertight vocal harmonies, and euphoric choruses, and laying them lovingly on top of a hard-riffing rhythm section with more than a little metallic bite. What it doesn’t tell you is that this is probably the only rock album of the 1990s without a single dud track.

Paradoxically, it’s one of those albums that takes a long time to fully appreciate. This is, clearly, not because it is complicated, or an acquired taste. It’s pretty much one of the most immediate tastes you could ever wish for. It’s because it really fucks over those of us that like to quickly identify our favourite tracks on a record, and then have a familiar skipping pattern as we whizz through the highlights whenever we put it on. I had my three or four favourites when I first listened to this, many years ago, and that was enough. But, slowly, over the years, a new track that I’d skipped before suddenly imprinted itself on my brain in a manner that can only be described hyperbolically. And now, as Shame On Me finally clicked a couple of weeks ago, I realise, there is not a single second of this album that doesn’t ooze with class.

Greetings from Shitsville, a frank description of London from the perspective of a relocated Northener, opens the album with a menacing, chromatic metal riff, that sets out the band’s stall as an uncompromisingly heavy proposition, before splicing it with a sweetly tuneful verse and even sweeter chorus. This is pretty standard for the band, but the two elements complement eachother so naturally- a velvety fist inside and iron glove- that there is no hint of gimmickry or of the pulling of a trick.

Choosing highpoints is a bit like trying to work out the highest peak in the Andes when stood at sea level, but I’d like to mention two songs in particular. Suckerpunch strings together an improbable number of ideas into a sub-three minute song: it opens with a crushing staccato grind replete with distorted growling vocals, switches gears into a “woah woah”-ing chorus, and then via a fleeting riff-based homage to the William Tell Overture, slows down into something really quite soulful. My Baby is a Headfuck is exuberant but foulmouthed surf-pop in the vein of Twist and Shout, with a soundbite from The BeatlesDay Tripper reminding you precisely what musical tradition this sits proudly in.

I have an utterly unshakeable faith in the greatness of this band, and would gladly join a cult dedicated to the sanctity of this record. To my ears, their last few albums have sounded slightly too clean, slightly too poppy. On them, the band sounds a little more, dare I say it? American. But regardless of what happens to this national treasure, anyone with soul needs their music in their life, and more than anything, they need this album.

Killing Songs :
My Baby is a Headfuck, Suckerpunch, Drinking About Life
Charles quoted 95 / 100
Other albums by The Wildhearts that we have reviewed:
The Wildhearts - Chutzpah! reviewed by Charles and quoted 83 / 100
0 readers voted
Average:
 0
You did not vote yet.
Vote now

There are 4 replies to this review. Last one on Sun Sep 27, 2009 5:19 pm
View and Post comments