Sad Lovers & Giants

They are very melancholy. And mellow. I can't help but think folks who like the Church or the Chameleons or The Sound or Comsat Angels would like them.

And also: King of the Slums. It has been a billion years since I've heard any King of The Slums and I have meant to remedy that for awhile now, so yeah, that has to be done ASAP.

P.S. POPGUNS RULE

the 2002 reunion album, Melting in the Fullness of Time, contains one of their very best songs, "German Cars," which is so good it could have been on the Associates' Sulk. and it would have been a highlight. other favorites are "Imagination," "Sleep (Is For Everyone)," "Caught in Flux," all of The Mirror Test (so underrated!), "Like Thieves," "Christmas on Easter Island," god, i could go on and on. as much as i love Garce's voice, i'm a total sucker for SLAG's instrumentals. ambrosia!

Yeah, exactly! That's what I was trying to get across that this idea of choosing a song to tell folks to start with makes no sense because you could pretty much just pick any song at random and get the basic gist.
That said, I like "Sleep (Is For Everyone)" a lot, too, Ghost Bear.

It's so funny to realize their name spell an acronym "SLAG", though - makes me want to pull out that Fall song about Slags, Slates...

I will have to give "German Cars" a go. I didn't know they reformed.

how do you rate their later albums, Bimble? Treehouse Poetry and Headland tend to get slagged (ha!) off by fans of the band's first lineup. i think they're weaker, esp. lyrically, but still full of good material. better than any Snake Corps i've heard. something about that band bugs the shit out of me.

funny, i was also searching YouTube for SLAG clips yesterday. great minds...

hadn't thought about KOTS in a while. liked Dandelions well enough but didn't feel the need to investigate further. was i wrong?

I don't know their later albums...FTF is where I quit, pretty much. I just heard "Cowboys", though, a minute or two ago and that was really good, made me want to seek out more. I don't know what album that song is on, but maybe I should give Mirror Test a try after all.

the SLAG lineup from The Mirror Test onwards is more playful, less claustrophobic than the dense, obssessive FTF. i think it's the acoustic elements added by new guitarist Tony McGuinness and (more prominent) keyboardist/pianist Juliet Sainsbury that make the difference, opening up the SLAG sound, letting in a little air and light to buoy the romantic wist in Garce's vocals.

the Snake Corps/SLAG connection were the formidable duo of guitarist Tristan Garel-Funk and keyboardist David Wood, and you can definitely hear it. both bands had that lucious, anthemic post-punk sound we can't get enough of. the drummer was Rudimentary Peni's Jon Greville. Ian Gibson, who was also SLAG's bassist on The Mirror Test made all the right Burgess/Bacon moves. but somehow Snake Corps ended up sounding like a Chameleons desperate for chart success. i'm not sure where everything went wrong. i guess Marc Lewis is to blame, as his voice is good, but his tendency to over-sing every chorus gets on one's nerves after a few songs. i'm pretty sure it's not the material, which is often just as strong as SLAG's if a bit more bombastic. but just compare the SLAG versions of "(Caught) In Flux" and "Clint" with the Snake Corps' and you know why one band sinks while the other soars.

in summary:
Script of the Bridge:FTF::WDAM?B:The Mirror Test

and add "Seven Kinds of Sin" to my fave songlist.

unrelated - Lori & The Chameleons' "The Lonely Spy" is on YouTube!

and why can't all music be as good as The Mirror Test?

thank christ for For Against.

have i mentioned that i'm, um, passionate about this band? right now i just want to slip on a trenchcoat, scale the highest mountain, hold a boombox aloft and blast the world with SLAG until it reciprocates my love.

What the hell were Hackney Five-O like anyway? I can't remember if I ever heard them. I feel like I must have, though, cause I had a Midnight comp.

SLEEP IS FOR EVERYONE