Salad: "Drink Me"

Released: 1995

Salad were something of a devisive group in the Britpop era, at least amongst people who had heard of them, which sadly wasn't that many.

I remember reading one review of a Salad single in the NME or Melody Maker which was just one line along the lines of "I hate Salad".

As for the music itself, Salad are one of those indie groups whose music that words such as "angular" and "spiky" are commonly used. And to be fair, that would be a fair description of a lot of the songs on here, full of punchy guitar riffs and cool female vocals.

The weak points on the album are the slower songs, which don't really work at all. Fortunately, there's not too many of them. The lyrics are also particularly weak and pointless, but you don't notice them so much on the more uptempo songs.

The highlights are the first three songs on the album, 'Motorbike to Heaven', 'Drink the Elixir' and 'Granite Statue', though 'Your Ma' and 'A Man with a Box' are also pretty good.

Overall, this is a pretty good album, and is something of an undiscovered gem of the Britpop era. With a bit of editing (i.e. leaving off some of the weaker slower songs), it could have been even better, though it's worth checking out.

Rating: 3.5/5