Elastica - Elastica

I love this album! Whether its the frantic pace that it rattles through it's 15 songs or the pure energy of each individual one, I don't know, but it rocks! Like every good album, there a few pop songs to get you into it, namely in the middle with allnighter (the wailing 'I'M SO HAPPY!' sticks in the mind for an age). After a time the rest of the album seems equally appealling and you have one of the most enjoyable, energetic and slightly twisted 35 minutes of your record collection. ...

The Indie scene of the mid-1990's spawned a whole host of British bands with attitude that didn't seem to be aping their American counterparts. Few of these bands carried a greater weight of expectation that the London quartet Elastica. Comprising of Justine Frischmann (lead vocalist and guitarist), Donna Matthews (backing vocalist and guitarist), Annie Holland (bass) and Justin Welch (drums), their eponymous debut was one of the most eagerly anticipated releases of 1995. Much of this hype had developed due to Frischmann's personal life. A former member of Suede and girlfriend of their lead singer Brett Anderson, she later became romantically ...

This album really captured an era. Girls with guitars, catchy indie tunes and functional lyrical content, all mainstays of the Britpop age. The album doesn't really stand up to close scrutiny now, but that doesn't really count against it, as it was meant to be listend to back then. As such, the insanely catchiness of Waking Up, Stutter and Connection, for example, still lives on, and indeed still grabs you. It would have been nice if the band left it there, but they didn't. Still, it was good while it lasted. ...