So classicist and timeless, you'd swear these songs have just existed forever.
Like I said, despite all the touchstones of influence from the all-over-the-place British rock scene at the time —shoegaze to acid house, it's all here— there's a very traditional quality to these songs. Take "Everything About You" for instance. Appearing in two incarnations —one a more produced, cleaner take that originally appeared on the Snowball mini-album and one a rougher, noisier, shoegazier take— the song sounds absolutely conventional. Like a mellower Nuggets outtake or something. In fact, take out the vintage mid-80's keyboards and you'd probably be able to fool any obnoxious baby boomer it was a one hit wonder form their childhood. This deluxe edition doubles up the original length of Snowball, plus some, by adding a slew of surrounding singles and EP's. Among them are: the original four song Emma's House EP in all its drum machine glory; the schizophrenic "Sensitive"/"When Morning Comes To Town" 7", which is a brilliant outing, showcasing two completely different, yet wholly convincing sides of the band (plus "Sensitive" is the song that introduced me to the band); the "I Can See Myself Alone Forever"/"Everything About You" 7"; and finally, "That's All This Is" from a benefit compilation album. Overall, the deluxe edition is a wonderful encapsulation of the band's earliest days when it was just Bob Wratten, Michael Hiscock and Ian Catt. The sound of a band, whose signature sound was to be exploratory, finding itself and its identity. There's a lot of similar stuff like this from the period out there — it's just nowhere near as good.
~Austin
CHOCOLATE. LOVE. SEX.
A two disc set, they shoulda called this one Singles+Skywriting because the album is eclipsed by over a disc's worth of bonus materials. The original Skywriting album does appear at the beginning of disc one. And it starts off with the infamous nine minute sequencer workout "Triangle". Apparently, that put more than a few of the band's fans off. Dah well. Not a bad song by any means, it does feel at times like Ian Catt had just recently acquired the sequencer and was just sitting there pushing buttons, all like, "Is this thing on?" I like how Bob tries to get funky over the rhythm while talking about not wanting to wake up. He's so goth. Except then he sings "If You Need Someone" later on, which is decidedly not goth and it's way better, too. In fact, if someone hadn't heard the Field Mice, I'd probably play them that song and flip 'em the bird if they didn't like it. Oh yeah, "Song Six" rules. I just love it, because if you were to read the lyrics on paper, it would sound like a total rant, but the song makes it sound cool to hate your own gender. And I think it is cool. I hate men, too. As this is the middle period of the band's output that's covered on the deluxe edition, it finds the most variety in their sound, as well their final incarnation with Anne Mari Davies and Mark Dobson falling into place. The total contents are: the original Skywriting mini-album, which is either dancey or jangly, but never both; the So Said Kay EP, which is pretty, balladeering melancholy; The Autumn Store EPs, which are sprightly and jumpy; "I Thought Wrong", "Right As Rain", and "A Heart Disease Called Love" are all outtakes that are just as good as the released materials; "Other Galxies" is an epic wah-wah pedal workout of a song taken from a compilation album; and then there's a re-recording of "This is Not Here (which originally appears on their final album For Keeps) from 1998. Whew. What a bucket of greatness.
~Austin
The cohesive, fully produced masterstroke that we all knew they had in them all along.
It's fitting that For Keeps was the last thing the band released. It almost feels like the rest of their records were an evolutionary buildup to the climax of this album. Everything they've tinkered around with before is present on this album in some form, and often it feels like the best example one could give of the Field Mice doing that particular thing. When the band really gets ambitious and melds everything together, the result is the shoegaze/trip hop/wah-wah jangle of the opener "Five Moments." A truly unique musical moment, especially for a band that has so many blatant influences as the Field Mice do. The rest of the album runs the field from epic power ballads (but without the hair metal connotations) like "Star of David", "And Before the First Kiss" and "Willow" to noisy freakouts like "Tilting at Windmills" and "Freezing Point" to the sort of traditional 12-string jangle pop that they built their name upon ("Coach Station Reunion" is a stone cold classic in my book). For the first, and unfortunately only time, they feel like a cohesive working unit and everything just gels to perfection. The psychedelics are turned up a bit, which provides a good preview for what was to come next for the core three members. The bonus materials are excellent, gathering up the Missing the Moon EP and the "September's Not So Far Away"/"Between Hello and Goodbye" 7". The New Order-groping "Missing the Moon" makes good on all the promises their previous attempts at a dance song made. In a perfect world, it would have been on the radio right in between Depeche Mode and the Pet Shop Boys — and it would've made both of them look absolutely irrelevant. Easily this band's definitive statement and one of the best albums of British indie rock... well, ever.
~Austin
