Elastica: "Elastica"

Released: 1995

Hot on the heels of Sleeper's breakthrough for women in Britpop were Elastica. Lead by Justine Frischmann, a former member of Suede, and one half of Britpop's "golden couple" (with Damon Albarn), Elastica found a lot of early success (in the UK and USA) before fading away and splitting up shortly after the release of their second album ("The Menace", 2000) some years later.

This was actually the UK's fastest ever selling debut album (at the time of release) and it's easy to see why, as this is a fast, exciting, punky album full of great songs. Where as many Britpop bands looked to the 60s for inspiration, Elastica were more obviously influenced by punk and post punk, and dare I say it, even by grunge and American alt-rock. Wire though were their main influence, and it's easy to hear, and no surprise that the band were sued by  Wire after the release of this album for plagiarism on one or more songs. I've heard the comparisons of the "alleged" plagiarisms and they are pretty obvious.

That said, this is a very good album, let down slightly by a lull in the middle, especially 'Indian Song', a dreadful attempt to include Indian influences, which doesn't fit the album at all, and just isn't a very good song in its own right.

The plus points though are many. All five singles from the album ('Stutter', 'Line Up', 'Connection', 'Waking Up' and 'Car Song') are excellent, as are other highlights 'Annie', 'Blue', 'Vaseline' and 'Never Here'. Save the slight lull, the rest of the album flows well and is just as enjoyable now as it was when released, and doesn't sound dated at all.

This is definitely a highlight of the Britpop era and it's a shame it took five years to produce a follow up because it would have been good to have heard more of what this band could have done.

Rating: 4.5/5