You can say what you like about working hard and working it up from grass roots level, but we all need to luck into the geographical zeitgeist in this smutty rock'n'roll business. Now five albums in and still entrenched on their own label, this reviewer feels it's only geography that's preventing INSTANT SPECIES from making major strides forward. Should they have hailed from Hoxton rather than Huddersfield, they'd no doubt have been inlcuded in the NME'S faintly ridiculous 'London's Burning' piece recently.
Still, the capital's loss is surely our gain, and while we again wait for them to wake up, the rest of us will enjoy the new album (number five, no less) from this buncha midas touch popsters from West Yorkshire.
"Plan E" once again demonstrates just how far ahead from the unsigned/ demo-sending brigade Instant Species are. With melodies cascading through their veins and Rick Garnett's imploringly gruff tones again starring (he's added a snotty Miles Hunt-ish edge these days) it seems t'Species can continue reinventing their pop wheel pretty much indefinitely.
Besides, Rick's sure of his place in pop history regardless, as "Plan E" opens with the boys heading to Memphis via Marsden with "Elvis In Me". "I can't help it, I think I'm Elvis, king of rock'n'roll!" cries Rick as the staccato drum bursts go off all over the shop and the band make with a typically rousing opener with echoes of the Buzzcocks and Wonder Stuff at their best.
From there on, they barely put a foot wrong. Songs like recent single "She Gives Me Nothing", "Find Yourself" and the title track are archetypal Species, proffering big rave-ups of tunes, Stu Criddle's wonderfully chewy basslines and more hooks than a dozen hardware stores. The latter even cheekily appropriates the riff from The Jam's "'A' Bomb In Wardour Street", but naturally they get away with it, the blighters.
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The highlights continue to come thick and fast. The sarcastic, pulse-racer "No Centrefold" is romping yob-pop of the highest order and every bit as good as anything Pete'n'Carl have delivered into our midst, while "What Makes You Think You're Worth it?" sells you a dummy with it's loops and tinny intro, but soon flourishes into recognisably emotional pop with longing, betrayal and desire all tied up in pink ribbon.
Yet even when they Rick and co head off down Departure Avenue, they aren't found wanting. To this end, try out tunes like "Wealth & Health", "Formula 1" and "Scott Free". The first is built around an echoey guitar figure, mucho longing and (I think) even an E-bow bit, while "Formula One" revolves around a monster disco beat and Garnett's heavily flanged vocals. Heck, that's not a vocoder in there, is it? "Scott Free", meanwhile, is less gimmicky, but with its' semi-acoustic majesty, gloriously melancholy harmonies and wheezy, Dylan-ish harmonica, it's just lovely, and possibly Instant Species' very best song to date.
I could go on until I'm blue in the face about the cloth-eared record companies out there who continue to miss out on one of the provinces' best bands, but really Instant Species do it all far more eloquently themselves. "This is an emergency, can't you sense the urgency? That's why we're going for Plan E" sings Rick sagely on the title track. It's the only option to take if you ask me.
So what are you waiting for? Go get. Pronto.
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