Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Life’s beige acceptance has meant that we are now outraged by people who a decade ago would have been left by the wayside as non-entities, as the fools they have shown themselves to be, and we are the ones to whom have paid the price for the simpering maladjustment of grandeur we have afforded them.
We have become besotted with the less than ordinary fighting for our attention that when we spy a true original in our midst t frightens us, and whilst some will take this icon to the hearts, most will find excuse after excuse to steer clear, even denigrate the individuality on the basis that they just cannot understand the need to show an Orange Head when a blank one will suffice.
To feel the squeeze and the resulting champagne moment is to be in the presence of Black Grape, and whether you believe it is vintage, or just a cool design of reminiscent marketing, the blast of satisfaction derived from the listener as they take in the combination of unique personalities that comes in the form of Shaun Ryder and Paul ‘Kermit’ Leveridge, and that squeeze, that sense of delicious lyrical value is once more restored as Orange Head is released onto the public.
Forget the blank and the beige, the warning of the addictive music is one of most buoyant observations of the cross-genre motif that has become the organic stance of the pair and their associated musicians that have stood by their side over the years, and in the first recording in six years, both men push the boat out with extreme joy and bring a string of tracks out into the open with astonishing cool an groove.
From tracks such as Button Eyes, In The Ground, Milk, Pimp Wars and Self Harm comes the unstoppable destroyer of the beige and the unedifying, and as the album progresses the sense of drama fills the veins; as it should, as it must, for this is the vibrant reflection of the colour decreed, this is the warning sign beyond the amber and the misuse of the red and green of stop and go.
Linger in the mind of two unique musicians and performers, Black Grape have returned to save the collectors of the dull routine from themselves.
Black Grape’s Orange Head is out now.
Ian D. Hall