Shed Seven
Change Giver

THE REVIEW

“If we are The Beatles, where are The Rolling Stones… they're certainly not the f***ing Shed Seven,” Noel Gallagher to Melody Maker… 1994.

The words of The Chief alone are enough to understand that we are witnessing a great debut. Really great.

“Change Giver” was released in September 1994 and, to tell the truth, it reached “only” the 16th position on the sales charts in Great Britain, but it is one of those albums that absolutely do not go unnoticed, neither by industry professionals nor by contemporary and “future” musicians. “Dirty Soul” and “Speakeasy” are the two tracks chosen to open and they do so perfectly… a combination of sustained guitars and wavy melodies, starting from the Madchester of Stone Roses, Inspiral Carpets, and especially Charlatans to reach Oasis themselves, but they are from York and their sound is much softer and “”intimate”” than that of the Gallagher brothers, as perfectly demonstrated in the subsequent “Long Time Dead.” At times, the band of Rick Witter and Paul Banks plays at being Blur who play at being The Smiths, yet they manage to keep everything at a high and especially original level in the final form, “see” a track like “Heads And Hands.”

“Casino Girl” (AA side of the single “Mark,” the band's true debut and a tribute and homage to the sound of Morrissey and Marr) seems to come straight from “Second Coming” by Stone Roses, even though there is still a year to go for the second installment by Ian Brown and co. “Missing Out” is of a touching delicacy and “Dolphin” (the last of the four singles taken from the album) is the perfect compendium of British ““indie”” music from the second part of the decade and much of the first half of the new decade. “Stars In Your Eyes” and “Ocean” are perhaps the two weakest links of the lot, cute and simple dream-pop, made as if Ocean Colour Scene had momentarily forgotten all their problems…

“On An Island With You” (my absolute favorite track by Shed Seven) worthily closes, with its abundant 8 minutes, the best English album of 1994 by a distance, if only “Definitely Maybe” hadn't been released…

In short, one of the top 5 “Brit-Pop” albums of all time… simply.