Long standing readers of Backseat Mafia will know that our love for criminally underrated 80/90s heroes BOB knows no bounds. So the news of a ‘new’ album – ‘You can stop that for a start’, out on 29th September via Optic Nerve is one thing, the news that we can premiere the first single taken from it, ‘Plastic’, is quite another.
The album was originally written and recorded by BOB over a five day period in 1992, but never released as the band (like hundred of others) fell victim to the collapse of Rough Trade Distribution, and their artistic carpet was effectively pulled from under them. The band feel now is the time for the material to see the light of day, and chief songwriters Simon Armstrong and Richard Blackborrow have mined their archive, mixed the tracks, and with the help of the rest of the band, conceived the artwork and packaged it with period artwork and contemporary sleeve notes. It’s accompanied by 14 of the bands favourite demos recorded between 1988 and 1994.
Of the track, released digitally on August 21st, the bands Simon Armstrong says “It’s about one of those mornings when a hangover makes communication tricky. The chorus is pinched from Mark Lewisohn’s Beatles Abbey Road sessions book, my copy of which was getting tatty through constant re-reading by ’92. I can’t have been the only person who was memorising its every detail at that point, but that fact has only become obvious since then.”
Listening to Plastic, you realise the cruelty of the times, as this stands up not only to the best of their own repertoire (the fantastic Convenience included), but also the best of it’s time, with elements of Pavement at their best in there amongst others. Moreover though, if it’s sunshine indie pop, with glorious guitar riffs, and a harmony laden chorus that gets inside your head and buzzes around in there for days floats your boat (and dammit, why wouldn’t it?), then check this out, it’s brilliant.
Clearly you HAVE to go And pre order the album, if you haven’t already, here
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