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"Its fucking brilliant" was how Ginger described this album prior to its release on an unexpecting public. Never one lacking in self-confidence it would have been easy to dismiss these words as the kind of pre-release over-enthusiasm that accompanies virtually every release known to man. In fact, if anything Ginger's statement could appear to be rather modest!
Earth Vs certainly had a lot of expectations to live up to, following on as it did from two EP's that signalled that there was a storm brewing in the British rock scene. And live up to them it did. And then some.
Drawing influence from the likes of the Beatles, Metallica, Motorhead, the Beach Boys and the Ramones, the sound succesfully mixes punk, blues and good old rock n' roll with the kind of harmonies rarely found on records of this volume. And then there was swearing thrown in for good measure, lots and lots of swearing.
Kicking off with 'Greetings From Shitsville' comes across as a definite statement of intent - a massive, heavy, stompy (and yet strangely groovy) riff in the style that would become one of the band's many trademarks, lyrics that people could relate to without being self-indulgent or self-pitying and, of course, a monster sing-a-long chorus.
So, they start well, but can they keep it up? You bet they can! Taking in the bluesy Loveshit, the relatively lo-fi (compared to the rest of the tracks!) Miles Away Girl, the headache-inducing, aural battering of Suckerpunch and everything in between, this record contains more classics than any band has the right to offer up in one sitting. And then they go and re-release it with the addition of the mightily fine Caffeine Bomb.
Describing every track on the album in detail would be a waste of time - anyone who's ever heard the record would appreciate the impossible task of doing it any kind of justice on paper and anyone who hasn't should go out and buy it now and find out what they've been missing out on for so long.
Mark
Stephens
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