Many decades have a sound; a style that permeated the charts and stands out with the passage of time. The opening bars of this album took me right back to the “Street Sounds” compilation that was what indie pop-rock was for me in the early 1990s and that guitar pop-rock style has been captured so well here by Engines Made From Soup (or EMFS as I like to call them).
Co-founding Soups-engineer Gareth Cross explains: “This is a compilation of two recording sessions after we reformed (briefly Ministry of Plenty) as Engines Made From Soup in the early 1990’s:
“The first session was recorded in 1993 and included Get There, No More, No Difference, and Trekking to a Different World. These four songs appeared on a 4-Band CD compilation for the promoters Big Nose & Potato Man. We played many gigs together in ‘party nights’ across the UK in the mid/late 1990’s including in Manchester, Bristol and Newcastle.
“The second session in about 1995/6 were 4 songs for our CD ‘Better EP’; Better [both vocal and instrumental versions (ed)], I Know, It Couldn’t be Better, and One Track Mind. Both sessions were recorded at Frog Studios, Warrington and engineered by the legendary ‘Dickie’. These two CDs are now extremely rare!”
So rare that Discogs doesn’t even list them or, if they do, I didn’t see either of them. So here is my take, first on the Big Nose/Potato Man-compilation contribution. The tracks on their Sound Cloud page aren’t in this order but I’ve reconstructed my comments as though they were:
Get There – almost-Simon Le Bon vocals with the guitar-distortion dialed up past 11 and the mechanical drummer doing his bit. Love the guitar solos, too.
No More – very computer-rock (Mi-Sex “Space Race”/Computer Games) telling her, in no uncertain terms, that she’s been made redundant. A great keys-solo!
No Difference – how I imagine Jaded Edge sounded in the early 1980s with the synth sound and Casio drum-machines that echoed through the charts at the time; especially from Mi-Sex, Midge Ure/Ultra Vox, and the post-glam favourites of the era. In fact, the Sound Cloud blurb suggests that this is, in fact, exactly what they were doing at the time.
Trekking to a Different World – this is an 80s/90s crossover reminiscent of TMBG output on and since “Flood”, especially with the synth bass and slightly-dirty Strat sound.
The title/opening track of their “Better EP brings back the Le Bon vocals over distorted guitars and pop-synth over simple bass-&-drums in a love song about how good life is going to be.
I Know – catchy pop-rock riff with backing vocals a la REM‘s break-out “Automatic for the People”.
It Couldn’t be Better – the guys’ tribute to Dylan? That lo-profile guitar sound favoured by solo and duet acts accompanying two voices and a mouth organ/harmonica
One Track Mind – Le Bon and distortion+ with bass-keys this time with REM backing vocals on the chorus.
The instrumental remix “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Better“* seems to have been an afterthought. Better Instrumental: the perfect coda / reprise closing track. If a television show were to use the opening track for their title theme, this would be the perfect end-credits underscore.
EMFS were born in the 1970s and worked through until the mid to late 1990s. That pre-grunge feeling was captured here on their “Better EP” and their Big Nose Potato Man compilation contributions. For those of you who weren’t there, this is the exactly what guitar-pop garage bands were doing at a time before Butch Vig brought Nirvana and grunge to the world, and a great example of taking the band out of the era but not taking the era out of the band. And the band has been so generous in putting this up on SoundCloud you should really take advantage of it. Their next album, “Again”, was released in November 2020. Let’s see, now, how they’ve developed during that 25 years in the wilderness!
My next piece on this band will be the review of that newer album. Watch –>…<– this space!
*Not actually called this but it should have been