Expecting To Fly - The Bluetones

THE BLUETONES The Bluetones hail from Hounslow and released this album at the peak of the Britpop phenomenon back in 1995. They consist of Mark Morriss on vocals, Scott Morriss on electric guitar and vocals, Adam Devlin on six and twelve string guitar and Eds Chesters on Drums and Percussion. All the songs are written by them. EXPECTING TO FLY The album a proficient collection of guitar-based tunes, which manages to be both varied, yet flows so well you hardly notice it change from one track to the next, giving the feeling of one piece of 53 minute and 45 second music, rather than lots of little songs. It's infused ...

Unique is a word that's cast about all too liberally these days. Somebody does something slightly out of the ordinary, and it becomes 'unique'. Thankfully, there's enough of us around with our head screwed on to cynically dismiss this vague concept of greatness, and look for the real meat to these falsely titled items. For something to be unique, it must have a fair proportion of difference to everything else out there. It's a term that's hard to attach to something, in the same way that 'classic' shouldn't be thrown about too much either. For these precise reasons, I'm not going to label the Bluetones as unique. Although ...

When they appeared on the scene they were dubbed the Bluetone Roses. High praise indeed but it was really asking for too much as the Bluetones are really quite a limited band. The promise shown by the early singles has simply not materialised. 'Are You Blue Or Are You Blind', 'Slight Return' and 'Bluetonic' were a trio of fantastic singles that proved that jangle pop was alive and well. If everything on the album was half as good then 'Expecting To Fly' would be a winner. As it is there are more lumpen stodgy tracks than bristling shiny ones. 'Talking to Clary' for example is just pointless drivel that should never have ...