Elastica
Elastica

What was I doing in 1995? Why didn't I like this record? I can't answer the first question. Perhaps the second. I was probably too attached to a certain English sound from '79-'82 (my golden age) to bear these three girls plus a guy on drums. To delve a bit deeper. To hear the discards (in the sense of deviations). Because only now have I accepted that we move forward with small shifts, divergences, indeed, discards.

At first glance, they seemed too much like Wire guitars, too much like The Passions' voice, too much like The Buzzcocks' rhythm.

Now, that the new wave revival is the bread of every day, it is appropriate to reevaluate Elastica. If only because they had the idea to revive that sound ten years before the current imitators. If only because they are certainly better than any post wave band that has appeared on the cover of NME in the past two years.

And it is especially necessary to reevaluate Justine Frischmann. Too many considered her simply the muse of Brett Anderson first, then Damon Albarn. And that could also be sufficient ("Animal Lover" by Suede, "Beetlebum" and "No Distance Left To Run" by Blur talk about her, and are among the most beautiful English pop songs of the past 15 years).

Miss Frischmann, frontman and leader of Elastica, rightly left Suede because the role of second guitar was too tight for her. And Elastica achieved success in the U.S.A. well before Blur.

Don't expect anything groundbreaking or innovative. Just delightful little songs, all except for a couple that exceed four, under three minutes, but some even under two. Fun. Carefree. With fragile fragile choruses, to sing in the shower.

A bit too much like Wire, as I said above (don't be fussy and don't listen to "I'm The Fly" from "Chairs Missing" and the opening "Line Up" in a row). Sometimes Pixies ("S.O.F.T." and "Never Here" especially). But also influential on the sound to come: Albarn in "Car Song" plays the keyboards under the pseudonym "Dan Abnormal", but the atmospheres of that piece will only emerge in Blur's self-titled album, a couple of years later; Franz Ferdinand made billions rearranging some of Frischmann's songs.

In my opinion, at an Elastica concert, everyone was under the stage drinking beers and hopping around. I often don't ask for much more from a band. Strange to think that, after this little record, it's said that Elastica dedicated themselves more to heroin than to pop. Strange life, as they say. But these are other stories. For your summer, I suggest you rediscover these forty short minutes for fifteen songs. Best use: back from the beach, you're in front of the mirror getting ready for happy hour. Let me know.