‘Expecting To Fly’ by The Bluetones

A few days ago, I was listening to ‘Everything Must Go’, the Manic Street Preachers album which played a significant role in the development of music in the nineties. At a similar time, The Bluetones were at the height of their career. They would never have anything like the impact that the Manics had, and as such, they’re largely forgotten now, but because expectations of this record are so much lower a decade and a half on, it comes out pretty well.

At their best, The Bluetones wrote great pop songs. ‘Bluetonic’, ‘Cut Some Rug’, ‘The Fountainhead’ and especially ‘Slight Return’ are a joy to listen to. Mark Morriss isn’t a brilliant singer, but he’s equal to the task, and Adam Devlin’s guitar work is light and fluid enough to keep you engaged throughout.

The album becomes less of a pleasure when the band stray further from the pop-song mould. Tracks like ‘Things Change’, ‘Putting Out Fires’ and closing track ‘Time & Again’ are all reasonably good attempts to produce more substantial songs, but the band don’t seem quite up to carrying their weight.

It holds up fine. At the time, you’d have been hard pushed to find anyone who would identify The Bluetones as their favourite band, and time won’t have enhanced their standing, but anyone who enjoyed their music at the time almost certainly still would.