Daryll-Ann - I Could Never Love You

Dutch band from the mid-1990s. Never thought they were great, but they had a few nice tracks of pleasant guitar pop that would have gone over very well with US college radio listeners, if anyone in the US had ever heard of them.

This 1994 single was their career highlight, I think.

Revolver - Molasses

Revolver were considered a shoegaze band but, as with so many of the other "shoegaze" bands I've covered here, that tag never really fit them properly. To the extent that they were shoegaze it was more of the Swervedriver end of the genre, as this track shows, but basically I'd describe them more as just guitar-driven pop.

Their early singles were... ok. I wasn't really mad about them. This is the strongest song out of them, and it was a b-side (to "Heaven Sent An Angel", a song that reflects Mat Flint's unfortunate tendency for the really cheesy love lyric - though having said that I did once meet the girl that all those songs were about and she was genuinely lovely). All three were released in 1991; the band didn't get around to doing a proper album until 1993, by which point pretty much everyone had lost interest. I actually found that album (Cold Water Flat) a lot more interesting than the singles but unfortunately for Revolver their time had passed.

The Auteurs - Bailed Out

Here's an early one from the Auteurs, a band I continue to have almost violent disagreements about with other indie heads. I guess you just love them or hate them.

This is from their debut album, 1993's New Wave (and isn't that a great name for an album?). Although the verses have some of the most opaque lyrics Luke Haines has ever written, the chorus is a near perfect example of his talent for the simple couplet with the killer blow. Nice tune, too.

Moose - Little Bird (Are You Happy In Your Cage?)

I've posted before about how Moose tend to be lumped in with the shoegaze scene but I don't think they really were shoegaze. I've since learned that they were, in fact, the original shoegaze band: that is, it was in a review of a Moose gig that the adjective "shoegaze" was first applied. So I guess by default they have to get that label. Doesn't mean I have to like it, though.

I mean listen to this song. It's a fantastic track, catchy as all hell and with clever, deliciously evil lyrics and Russell Yates's always-appealing vocals. Shoegaze, however, it is not. It actually reminds me more of something like Kitchens of Distinction's "Drive That Fast" (I must put that up some time). Should have been a bigger hit but I guess that's what happens when everyone just dismisses you as belonging to a genre you don't really belong to at all.

Moose - Suzanne

An underrated band sort of loosely connected to the shoegaze scene. Well, maybe "loosely connected" is the wrong way to put it. They were considered a shoegaze band but I don't really remember them ever gigging with the other shoegaze bands, plus they were on Hut which wasn't a very shoegazey label. Actually, listening to them now they don't really sound very shoegazey at all. Maybe I'm making the whole thing up.

They were very good, anyway. This is from an early EP.

Auteurs - Underground Movies

The Auteurs pushed a lot of my buttons. Whiney vocals? Check. Snappy lyrics? Galore. Attitude? My god, did they have attitude. Although despite the miserable misanthropic cynical bastard persona, Luke Haines actually came across quite friendly and cheerful on the two occasions I had to see them live. I've since been told, however, that I must have just caught him on a couple of (rare) good days. Whatever. The Auteurs were genius, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

I always wondered why he picked Baltimore as the location for this song. If anyone knows, do tell.