TINDERSTICKS: “Tindersticks” (This Way Up)

DID YOU ever buy an album hoping it would be good and then find out it was better than anything you ever expected? Jesus, Tindersticks are dark-horses; out of nowhere they release what is one of the finest albums for a very long time.

What I really love is that they remind me of so many of my favourite bands but still sound nothing like any of them. They’ve been labelled Bad Seeds wannabes, but they shouldn’t settle for that. They could be so much better. Stuart’s more like a kindred spirit to Nick Cave, he has a Nick Cave voice but he has also got a Lawrence from Felt voice, a Bryan Ferry voice; hell, one line reminds me of Patti Smith every time!

Then there’s the band; amazing keyboards, a violin player that plays as Wickham did on The Waterboys’ The Pan Within, soft and loud at the same time. And as for Terry Edwards on brass, Gallon Drunk must be so pissed off! First Tindersticks usurp their position as the Bad Seeds in waiting, then they borrow their trumpet player and get him to play the most amazing stuff, and I hate brass!!! Terry Edwards is godlike on this album. I nearly feel like searching out his Fall tribute record.

Of course there’s lyrics too, lines of almost throwaway brilliance, like somebody living their life “like a series of complicated dance steps,” or the end of ‘Marbles’ or all of ‘Jism’. I was going to mention something Nietszche said about every laugh being the sound of another emotion dying, and how Stuart sounds like somebody who didn’t laugh much, but I can hear the humour coming from the record as it plays in the background.

Album of the year? In the NME, Melody Maker or Hot Press, probably not, as they stick with their mainstream. In this house, it’s as if nobody else made an album this year. As my brother said in passing when he heard the single ‘City Sickness’, “I hope Dave Fanning keeps playing Suede for the rest of his life!”

• Ivor Melia (Kerry)