Yes, yes, I realise we’re ridiculously slow off the blocks where THE LONG BLONDES are concerned, but surely it’s case of better late than never, right? Even though we’re a good few weeks late in running this review, it doesn’t alter the fact that ‘Once & Again’ and its’ attendant tracks are class acts which we’ll be dallying with for some time to come.
The Long Blondes, of course, are rapidly becoming hot pop property. With the release of their debut album ‘Someone To Drive You Home’ just behind them, they’re securing all the right plaudits, but it’s important to remember that thus far they have earned it on merit. They’ve already released a string of independent singles including the bona fide classic ‘Separated By Motorways’ which will surely become highly desirable in future and now under the auspices of Rough Trade they are really blooming.
Of course, it helps that The LBs are both charismatic in their own right (not least in the case of sardonic singer Kate Jackson) and also from the rule-bending pop background of their Sheffield home town, but – yet again – they bring potency of their own to the party with the memorable ‘Once & Never Again.’ Opening with that immortal chorus of “19, you’re only 19 for God’s sake and you don’t need a boyfriend!”, it’s witty, rites-of-passage stuff with bags of panache, debts being paid back to The Smiths and Blondie and drums that sound like they were recorded in a cave. It’s no surprise it went down a storm at Reading and Leeds at the tail end of the summer.
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The band’s Sheffield roots show through a little more on the ensuing ‘Who Are You To Her?’: a darker, hypnotic affair (probably literally) with possible stalker undercurrents and a hint or two of Pulp circa the sombre ‘This Is Hardcore’ battling against the disco beats and lithe rhythms. Featuring Kate in classic eyeball-scratching mode (“I’m still classic girlfriend material and I’ll do better than you”) it somehow manages to be huffy’n’jealous and cool’n’sophisticated all at once. Quite a trick to pull off.
‘Whippet Fancier’, meanwhile, boasts the second-best title this year (after One More Grain’s ‘Tropical Mother-in-Law’) and apparently finds Kate’s love interest bogging off and leaving her few clues. Not that she needs them, as she’s the epitome of ‘predatory’ as she purrs through the line “Now all I’ve got is a postcode to go on and that won’t get me laid.” Whoo. After this, the ‘Heart Of Glass’-style motorik pulsing of ‘5 Ways To End It’ are bound to sound slightly tamer, but it’s still a surreptitious pop treat tainted with stains on its’ sheets and a guilty early morning exit for all that.
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