Angleterre (Cassiel)
by Nik Rainey
Upbeat tunes meet moody lyrics about romantic disappointment and cardigan sweaters delivered in a featherweight voice that keeps slipping into a high register without warning… Brit-pop? How’d you figure that out? Damn, you folks are quick. All kidding a-snide, I’m an all-day-and-much-of-the-evening sucker for Anglo jangle, particularly when it twangs that eternal sixteen-clumsy-and-shy chord that some of us brazenly polished (in private, natch) back in the day when we hugged our hardbound copies of The Complete Oscar Wilde close to our chests in school, partially for the inspiration and partially to deflect the rotten fruit the metalheads used to throw at us. Ah, youth. Anyroad, Surrey git Stephen Manning has had a lot of practice in this area, having gobbed out a 26-song demo cassette of petulant pop plums under the name Molecular a few years back that inspired comparisons not only to the Smiths, Go-Betweens and Chris Knox (which meant the song quality was top-hole), but also Sebadoh, Guided by Voices and Pavement (which meant the recording quality was shit). Two of the people most impressed by the demo, Paul Kolderie and Sean Slade (no pikers when it comes to glow-pop), stepped in to mix Manning’s virgin studio effort under the name Statuesque, Angleterre, and Bob’s-yer-mother’s-brother-in-law, it’s a gear gob of UK sob, good enough to put creepers up your trellis and knock the meat out of your pasties. Gone are the lo-fi hissy fits; in their place, a lush eddy of sound knocks Manning’s odes to peevishness around a bit, then firmly roots it in the traditions of his ancestors (not that most of them would ever procreate, mind you). Only five songs, all of them grand (my favorite is the glide-guitarred “Three Quarter Moon”), enough to whet the stiff upper palate for a full LP. Eh wot?