Alternative TV
Apollo
[Overground]
Rating: 4.5
Remember grunge? Yes, friends, it's a dying art, these days, kept alive
only by the iron lung of commercial alternative radio. Turn it on sometime
for a look back at Flannel Power-- there are the stars of the show: Creed,
Silverchair, Days of the New... But kids, there's something worse going
down: this shit is happening all over again. Get ready for the rotten
fruits of all that downbeat labor going on right now in Britain.
Alternative TV isn't the most original of band names, but to be honest, I'm
still not sure if I'm supposed to take it for its unoriginal face value, or
chalk it up as Limey cheekiness. See, the band isn't easy to figure out.
Mark Perry sings more cockneyed than Johnny Rotten in a rainstorm, fingers
his vintage keyboard like he's the headliner at a Holiday Inn and noodles
with an MC303 as if he's just pressing buttons and hoping that the sounds
coming out fit the song. The rest of the band make like they're on Hour 72
of some lounge- jazz endurance contest. Imagine the Frankensteinian symbiosis
of the Mekons, Stereolab, Massive Attack, the Fall and Pulp, then add shoddy
production values.
In other words, if you're taking Alternative TV, it's like this:
you're drunk. Really, really drunk. And
you've just unknowingly consumed a backwards boilermaker-- one where they
drop a shot of ale into a pint of whiskey-- mistaking it for the real thing.
And you don't realize what's happened until your lunch is all over the woman
with three teeth and a tattoo on her forehead that you were hoping to take
home that night. However, if you're just sitting down with the album,
waiting for a good laugh, Apollo might get a couple out of you.
There's "Politics in Every Sausage," which is either a calypso parody or a
uniquely non-ascerbic take on the poor- and- pissed- on life at the bottom
of Britain's socioeconomic ladder. That's followed by the very drunk "A Love
Song," which is as barbarically romantic and half as muddy as Soundgarden's
"Big Dumb Sex." Meanwhile, "Oh Shit, We Fell From Grace," "Slap and Tickle"
and "Return of the Crack" are great titles for not- so- great songs.
And just in case you thought these guys were actually sober while recording,
they leisurely start and finish songs with no discretion whatsoever. In
fact, the working title for the record could just as easily have been
Getting Drunk to Make Music to Get Drunk To. If that was the case,
then Apollo is Spot On.
-Shan Fowler