It's not a period referred to as much as it should be in the city's illustrious musical history, but the turn of the 1990s was a fertile time for creativity in Liverpool. The co-incidental rise of the whole Madchester movement has all but eclipsed it in the history books, but take my word for it: there was a hell of a lot more going on down on Merseyside than The Farm and Lee Mavers' repeated attempts at nailing the The La's debut album.
Two of the most interesting local bands at the time were Attic Head and the immortally-named Spontaneous Cattle Combustion. Your reviewer saw both bands play storming sets on numerous occasions, but while neither got the chance to bother the scorers on a national level, both were quirkily talented outfits with a lot to offer should they have been given the chance.
However, unsung heroes from both bands would go on to create something even more seismic courtesy of RICKY SPONTANE. Not a solo performer but a fully-fledged art-pop outfit firing on all cylinders, they featured frontman Richard Batchelor (SCC) and lead guitarist Stephen Wood (Attic Head) and several similarly talented henchfolk and proceeded to slay us with the under-rated brilliance of the 'Hit The Town' album just as the 90s was bleeding to death.
Not that 'Hit The Town' belongs to any obvious time zone or agenda except its' own. Yes, it gleefully cooks up a mid-to-late '60s 'Nuggets' vibe and liberally hurls in everything from elements of The Fall, Yeah Yeah Noh and Beefheart, not to mention that indefinable DIY Liverpool aesthetic and comes swaggering gloriously out into the night like an Indie Tasmanian Devil. It's a bloody magnificent riot and one you'll be delighted you tracked back to.
It's recorded and mixed live, loud and upfront. Songs like the seething, all-stops-being pulled likes of 'The Late Review' and the piledriving title track are cheapskate roustabout garage pop of the highest order, while the scratchy and feverish 'Party Tiger' is so exciting it struggles to contain itself.The medium dischord stomp of 'Domino', meanwhile, reminds this writer just how much he'd been missing Spontaneous Cattle Combustion's marvellously weedy Casio organ sound and Richard's urbane, yet sinister vocals.
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Most of the record's taken at a frenzied clip, but there's room for the occasional departure. The semi-acoustic, almost 50s-style 'Good Things' is sunny, shambolic and superb in equal measures. 'More Country Blues' does exactly what its' title states, giving us a shot of Hayseed Americana and gives us an insight into what The Triffids might have sounded like if they'd hailed from Rock Ferry and been permanently inebriated. Perhaps best of all, though, is the closing 'The Three F's' which is the most gorgeously unlikely tribute to Messrs. Domino, Sinatra and Formby you could imagine. It rounds off an album which eats, swigs and snorts grass roots greatness from start to finish in the finest style imaginable.
At present, Stephen Wood features in the very promising, London-based Funsize Lions while Richard Batchelor has set out on a solo trail well worth stalking. However, while I've been writing this review in the past tense, I'm also writing it on a weekend when Ricky Spontane are again gigging in the capital, so who knows? Maybe there will be more wondrously oblique pop stirring in these loins yet. But that's a question for tomorrow. For now, put on your dancing trousers and 'Hit The Town'. You'll not regret it.
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