The Eyes Have It

Wide Eyed and Ignorant is a pop album; taking into account the fact

that A House are advocates of the distictively off-kilter, shambolic,

hopelessly romantic school of pop founded by The Go Betweens way

back when. Dave Couse sounds, as ever, pissed on, pissed off and

permanently perplexed, but this is still the most upbeat record A

House have ever made.

Which comes as a relief, because if any band has justification for

feeling bitter or peevish, it's A House. It seems as if every time they

come close to getting a bite of the cherry, someone replaces it with

a piece of wax fruit. It's not fair, and they know it's not fair, but at

least i means they've never had the opportunity to fall into

complacency. I'm sure that must come as great consolation to

them.

I Am The Greatest provide them

with their first real chart

breakthrough, and there's no

reason why Wide Eyed shouldn't

at least equal that success. One

of its definite selling points is

'Here Come The Good Times',

(wouldn't you have been

disappointed if they hadn't

followed that sentiment with "for a

change"?) a slice of thumping

glam-rock so defiantly festive that

it comes as no surprise when

Dave knowingly warbles "Merry

Christmas baby" towards the

end.

But even better is the track that follows it, 'She Keeps Me Humble'

with a lyric ("I am bought and sold, body and soul/with no

guarantees of her loving me") that brings about the same

embarrassing stab of recognition you get from 'When I First Saw

You'.

Even better again is 'Why Me'.

For the first few listens, I wasn't

sure about this, considering it to

be too immediately indentifiable

as an A House song to succeed,

but I'm beginning to believe that

it's precisely this quality of

recognisability - if you'll forgive

the expression - that elevates A

House above every other current

Irish act with the possible

exception of the Divine Comedy,

who soar above the masses like,

well, like some sort of bird, I

suppose.

It's not just attributable to the now customary half-spoken lyric, or

the equally familiar double dose of frustration and bemusement

streaming through its veins. It's difficult to know what it is

attributable to, except that it's the same quality that makes it

possible to discern an REM track at five hundred paces, even

when it's an instrumental.

Which isn't to say that you've heard all this before. A House have

never been so gorgeously askew as on 'These Things', where

Dave croons along to a backdrop of mutated strings and

something that sounds curiously like a musical saw. 'The Comedy

Is Over' is the most majestic singalong they've ever written, and for

three glorious minutes during 'Big Talk', Fergal Bunbury is Johnny

Marr, pure and simple.

The only occasion when it seems

as if they might be treading water

is on 'Deadhead', but I can't

dismiss a song that contains the

lines "All you ever do is go out

and get drunk and show off/You

make fun, then crawl home, you

crash out, then wake up/Prepare

yourself to do it all again"? Nor

do I wish to ever dismiss the

possibility of A House one day

achieving platinum success and

living the showbiz dream.

Everybody else is doing it, why

can't they?

Lorraine Freeney ^