1. Moose - Little Bird (Are You Happy In Your Cage?) (Hut)
This, really, is as jaunty as Moose ever got - a single ominously entitled "Little Bird (Are You Happy In Your Cage?)" combined with bouncy sunshine riffs and Russell's voice stretching itself to cracking point on the bouyant high notes.
Naturally, this is false optimism, a song reflecting a situation that is imperfect where one person is so blissfully happy in a relationship that all the power rests with the other, more indifferent, party. "Oh, I need so much more than YOU/ but in your eyes it's getting more wonderful" he sneers, "If you could see the things I do/ you'd know that it's all for me..."
As love songs go, this is superbly grouchy and skips down the road sarcastically, acknowledging the seldom spoken truth that sometimes the power of love can be an ensnaring and delusional thing, rather than a "beautiful" thing. If you're not listening to this song properly, you could kid yourself it's an innocent piece of fey romanticism. And if you're rushing high on adoration, you could trick yourself into believing that the "significant other" in your life cares about you, rather than tolerates having you around in lieu of any other better options.
2. Belly - Dusted (4AD)
Following her departure from Throwing Muses, Tanya Donnelly formed Belly who dropped into our lives with this, the likeable but inessential "Dusted". Sounding like the work of a band who were still beginning to understand each other's styles and working methods, and certainly inferior to the group's later work, it passes as an introduction to their world but is seldom talked about with great enthusiasm these days.
Largely propelled by one simple riff and Donnelly's obtuse lyrics, the actual single version - rather than the more polished LP track - isn't available online, leaving me to suspect that it may have been suppressed. It's surprising to hear how much of Belly's sound was nailed from the earliest baby steps of the group's career, but I doubt many non-fans of the group would hold this up as a must-listen of any kind. Indeed, my initial thoughts that Belly would probably be a very quickly done and forgotten prospect were proven horribly wrong when their debut LP "Star" shot to number one in 1993.
3. Swervedriver - Never Lose That Feeling (Creation)
Swervedriver were, along with Adorable, Creation's big new hopes. Emerging in 1992 with the defiant sounding "Son of Mustang Ford", they sounded like a band who were just as immersed in classic rock as they were shoegazing and The Jesus and Mary Chain. "Mustang Ford" in particular contained a lot of unapologetic and rough (and really thrilling sounding) fretboard workouts.
"Never Lose That Feeling" isn't quite the same sound, but is still as washed-out and dreamy sounding as hard guitar sounds allow themselves to get. Like a snowplough piling through a residential property in slow motion, it's a thundering, crashing noise taking place at a calm, undisturbed pace.
4. Smashing Pumpkins - I Am One (Hut)
Meanwhile, The Pumpkins enter into our lives again with some rumbling, thundering, inconclusive riffola which never progresses, moves, or wanders from the first heavy few seconds onwards. This is Hard Rock with a grunge tag slyly slipped on to it in the hope nobody would notice - although unlike an enormous amount of hard rock, it's a tedious slog of a listening exercise.
Bottom heavy, fussy sounding and minimal but lacking in adrenalin or groove, "I Am One" is a knuckle-dragging piece of work which probably sounds amazing if you come into the office on a dress-down Friday wearing double denim. I, however, won't be sorry if I don't have to listen to this dreck again for another twenty-five years. It's almost impossible for me to understand how something so loud and gut-thumping can induce so much yawning.
5. Come - Fast Piss Blues (Placebo)
It's hard for many people to remember now, but Boston's Come were actually huge press news in 1992. Fronted with the throaty, rasping vocals of Thalia Zadek, their music fitted in neatly with the dominant grunge scene of the time, but also (unlike the Pumpkins) could be incredibly edgy and threatening sounding, filled to the brim with dark chords and ominous rhythm patterns.
"Fast Piss Blues" gives a strong impression of their power, featuring meandering, demonic riffs combined with Zadek's furious vocal delivery. Sneering, kicking and screeching its way into the Indie Charts in 1992, this really was the group's only real commercial exposure in the UK. By the time they followed up their debut LP "11:11" with "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" in 1994, though, heads were being turned by other sounds and they slid back underground. For a few brief moments in '92 Come seemed like a very powerful emerging force, but the threat wasn't followed up with anything bigger.
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