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Friday, January 6, 2012

Crazyhead - Some Kind Of Fever

Name: Crazyhead
Album: Some Kind of Fever
Year: 1990
Style: Garage, Grebo (Great Britain midlands, pre-Grunge)
Similar Bands: Pop Will Eat Itself, The Wonder Stuff, Dramarama, Posies, Mission UK, Game Theory, Birdland.
"One-Word" Review: Thick-Sludgy-Jangle-Pop
Based Out Of: Leicester, England
Label: Black, FM Revolver, BMG,
Some Kind of Fever - Cover & Record
Some Kind of Fever - Back & Record

Some Kind Of Fever (1990)
  1. Big Sister 3:05
  2. Above Those Things 2:44
  3. Everything's Alright 3:17
  4. Magic Eye 4:53
  5. I Can Do Anything 3:00/Movie Theme 3:59
  6. Talk About You 3:29
  7. Rome 2:18
  8. Train 3:02
  9. Some Kinda Fever 4:15
Album Rating (1-10): 6.0

Members & Other Bands:Kev Reverb (Kevin Bayliss) – Guitar, keyboards, sitar (Zodiac Mindwarp,
Anderson (Ian R. Anderson) – Vocals
Vom (Robert Morris) – Drums (Zodiac Mindwarp, Diesel Park West)
Fast Dick (Richard Bell) – Guitar
Porkbeast (Dr. Alex Peach) – Bass (Stressbitch)
Christina X (Christine Wigmore) – Bass (Timeless Banditz)
Pat Collier - Producer
Steve Nunn - Engineer
Jessica Corcoran - Engineer
Nick Muir - Hammond Organ (The Men They Couldn't Hang)
Nick Raybould - Artwork

Unknown-ness: I’ve never heard of this band. But from the attitude and band picture on the front, I imagine this to sound a lot like Ugly Kid Joe. Maybe it’s just because the lead singer looks like Whitfield Crane to me. I like the totally 90’s hippie/grunge font of the band name, and the colored face collage on the back gives off a trippy, psychedelic vibe. I picked this up in a two-for-a-pound Oxfam charity shop in Reading, UK.

Album Review: “Big Sister” starts off with the grand appearance of pop-grunge. There are harmonized vocals singing out a fun brit-pop hook. There is a thickness to the song, which leads me to think of garage band music too. This is like Birdland-like rough Brit-Pop.
“Above Those Things” starts with generic thick jangley electric guitars, which all pauses to introduce the vocal melody. This song is more complex, and comes off like Game Theory or Let’s Active: layered harmonies and dense music. But it has a nice clean rock star finish.
“Everything's Alright” continues the thick music with complicated instrumentation and obviously British vocals. Actually there are a couple of times where this reminded me of Dramarama and/or Soul Asylum’s pre-fame songs.
“Magic Eye” is a slinky, pub-like, meandering song. It’s more of a drunken stumble than a psychedelic trip, as the title might otherwise suggest. In the end it spirals out of repetitive control, and even comes back for one more loop after a complete fade-out.
“I Can Do Anything” is filled with wah-wah guitars before the driving garage rock song kicks into auto pilot. This is a coked up, leg kicking, rock n’ roll with lots of yeah yeah yeahs.

“Movie Theme” starts out sounding like a simple Cheap Trick song, but that is only for the first chords. Then it slips into easy gear and brings back the sludginess of complex instrumentation. There is an underlying hook somewhere imbedded in the music that peaks its catchy head out once in a while, otherwise, it is all rocking jangle and fuzz. Then, at about 2:20 the song changes gears a bit and for just a few seconds, is bouncy and catchy…like a movie intermission. For the last minute of the song, there is dialogue mixed into the background, acting as just another level in the instrumentals
“Talk About You” is a little more recognizable as pop music, but still reliant on the jangley guitar. But the harmony in the chorus, which is just the title on repeat, is very catchy and upbeat. It actually kind of sounds like Fountains of Wayne’s “Bright Future in Sales.”
“Rome” starts right out with a catchy verse and is driven by the lead guitar. This would be a good song, except the slide guitar does not complement the song in the chorus. The song is a fast pace driving brit-pop song, but the slide guitar takes it in a different direction.
“Train” drives right out of the starting with a motivating guitar and drums. Then the lead guitar comes in for a lick (which used later, reminds me of Last Train to Clarksville” a little), and stops for the lead vocals to start. This sounds a lot more like British Jangle-Pop stuff from the 80’s than Alternative-Grunge.
“Some Kinda Fever” features a fade up to start the song. And the vocals begin, making the song sound like a snotty British angst song sung over a generic brit-pop melody that’s inflated with fuzzy guitars.

Stand-Out Track: Big Sister

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