Album review: The Stone Roses (Re-issued)

Published on Saturday 8 August 2009 16:44

THE STONE ROSES The Stone Roses (Re-issued) **** Silvertone/Sony 88697430852, £12.72

AN ALBUM that captured the zeitgeist, Ian Brown's notoriously indifferent vocal double-tracked to perfection, John Squire's frequently inspired guitar patterns immaculate, and Gary Mountfield's bass driving and headily delirious, this was the British rock record to which others could only aspire.

The Roses were Manchester's new thing, in the wake of the austerity of New Order and manly sensitivity of The Smiths; looming was the club scene led by Happy Mondays.

The band straddled the void, I Wanna Be Adored's almost apologetic introduction yielding to a muscular riff with Brown's plaintive yelp growing in confidence, and Mani's rumbling bass line filling dance floors.

She Bangs The Drums is the song Noel Gallagher is still trying to write, and this album was hugely inspirational to the creation of Oasis. Producer John Leckie fused England's industrial north-west with America's Sixties west coast, but in hindsight struggled with the weaker material.

Shoot You Down and Bye Bye Badman meander meaninglessly in the manner of frivolous early Pink Floyd. Elizabeth My Dear is chamber pot music, revisiting Scarborough Fair in a steamroller. Sugar Spun Sister could be Edison Lighthouse gone gently psychedelic. Twenty years on it still stands up as a fine piece of work, but is far from flawless. Six of these songs are indispensable, but five don't even measure up to woeful follow-up The Second Coming.

Download this: She Bangs The Drums, Made Of Stone