Fight Like Apes, The Body Of Christ And The Legs Of Tina Turner Album Review
Fight Like Apes first album, FLApes and The Mystery Of The Golden Medallion, was a great debut album brimming with energy, youthful exuberance, cocky bravado and genuinely funny, often cynical, reflections on life. You couldn't play it to your Granny, or your kids, and Jamie's own parents thought it was "Disgusting". MayKay sounded as petulant as Lydon and the songs sense of humour and power showed how you could inject a little fun back into a pedestrian rock panorama that was used to contemplating its own naval whilst listening to Coldplay, Radiohead or Arcade Fire.(I'm not averse to a little inward contemplation, but this album releases the over excited sugar loaded flailing child in you like no other). Like The Undertones, The Toy Dolls or The Sultans Of Ping before them FLApes showed you could use humour and wryly perceived observations to just as great effect as melancholic gravity. That was then.
The Body Of Christ And The Legs Of Tina Turner is now. It's not a bad album, but, I'm saddened to say, it's nowhere near as good as its predecessor. It does rather feel in the most part that this collection of songs were the ones that never made it in the final edit of the original album. There are exceptions, but too few. The opening two tracks are trying too hard to emulate the brilliant Something Global and Jake Summers, as if sequencing the songs in a similar order could somehow disguise their weaknesses. They are not in the same league. The opener 'Come On, Let's Talk About Our Feelings' is a social commentary on life lived out as though it were episodes of The Jeremy Kyle show. The synth strong back drop still sits spliced between the guitar and drum heavy beats to great effect but, when you've had Champagne you'd rather not settle for Cava. The latest single, 'Kenny Jelly', sees more effective use of hooky keyboard loops, bouncy bass lines and intermittently ludicrously fast velocity to effect a very catchy tune.(The videos quite funny too) Although repeated plays have softened my initial disappointment it still remains that from from here on in the album veers dangerously close to flat lining.
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