‘Elastica’ by Elastica

Elastica were one of those bands that really caught the moment. This, their debut album, was a major success on its release, just as Britpop was sweeping the musical world. Five years later, after numerous line up changes, their second album would limp from the studio to enormous public indifference, and the band broke up a year later. Generally in these circumstances, you’d tend to look back at the debut album and realise that actually, it wasn’t that good in the first place, thus consigning the band to a forgotten status.

Actually, despite the numerous controversies surrounding it at the time, ‘Elastica’ still stands up as a really good album. More than one other band accused them of plagiarism, and rumours abounded that Damon Albarn, partner of Justine Frischmann, the band’s frontman, wrote some or all of the record. However, even if all these rumours are true, the finished result is great.

At fifteen tracks and 38 minutes long, the album hurtles along, ensuring that any weaker tracks are soon forgotten about. At their best, the songs are catchy, punchy, and played with enough rough edges to sound exciting. I’ve no idea how much production work went into making these songs sound ‘as live’, but it works. Take the fifth track, ‘Smile’ as an example of all of this. The bass and guitar parts work almost in competition with each other, the bass in particular flares in volume frequently, but the melody is strong, the short and snappy harmony pieces fit perfectly, and after 100 seconds, it’s finished. (By contrast, ‘Hold Me Now, the following track, is two and a half minutes long, and it risks outstaying its welcome).

This isn’t an album you’d think to play that often – Elastic left behind no real further legacy, so once the Britpop era fizzled out, they faded away like so many other bands of the era, but this record does remain, an achievement to be proud of, and a very good listen even now.