The Beat Surrender

Back in the hey day of baggie it was two bands who really summed up the sound, the look (anyone else have a paisley shirt, tie dye t-shirt and 18 inch baggy jeans?) and the mood of the UK, the first was the Stone Roses who started to meld dance and rock music together, the other Madchester band were the Happy Mondays, fronted by half genius, half f*ck up that was oneSean William Ryder.

The biggest problem for The Mondays was quite obviously drugs, aside from the internal bickering everything else points to their substance abuse being the bands downfall, well lets be honest not just their downfall but also Factory Records as well who they managed to bring down with them.

They did though leave us with hazy memories of some brilliant tunes and a number of excellent albums, especially Bummed and the now legendary Pills Thrills And Bellyaches, although the last album Yes Please got a critical slating and didn’t sell as well as the others, it’s still an album i’m fond of to this day and in mu mind Stinkin Thinkin’ and Sunshine & Love are two great singles.

The chances of the band ever getting back together in its entirety seemed slim though, the afore mentioned divisions in the band still exist and the singles Boys Are Back In Town and Playground Superstar have hardly wetted the appetite for a comeback. It seems though that Sean Ryder, Bez and Gaz Whelan ever still have debts to pay or they just can’t sit idle because here they are with their first full length album in nearly fifteen years.

Uncle Dysfunktional should of course be awful, yet strangely it isn’t. I’m not sure if Ryder’s outing with The Gorillaz has suddenly given him a taste for music again but either way he’s back to his babbling non-sensicle best, with the occasional nugget of brilliance thrown in.

Musically the album is more mellow than anything they’ve released before, this despite Ryders vocals sounding raw to the bone on a couple of tracks like Rats With Wings and Deviants, aside from these two moments though it’s a good listen and does stand up ok against a lot of his back catalogue. The highlights are the funky Anti Warhol On The Dancefloor, the closing twitching but beat of Weather and the brilliant Cuntry Disco which would make a good single.

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