The Lightning Seeds are currently in the midst of something of a career spruce up, with the re-release of four of their older albums, as well as a squeaky-fresh Greatest Hits collection and tour on the horizon for later this autumn.
This week it’s the turn of Tilt, 1999’s fifth studio album, containing the last of their chart-bothering singles in the form ‘Sweetest Soul Sensations’ and ‘Life’s Too Short’.
“But I can’t see this album mentioned in the review title?” I hear you ask quizzically.
Well, as fine as Tilt is (and it is), not giving top billing to the other of their re-releases this week, which is now released on vinyl (finally) for the first time, would be akin to reviewing a real-ale pub and talking about the tablecloths and not the beer.
I’m not one for journalistic hyperbole (and not only because it’s hard to spell), but if I was ever famous enough to appear on Desert Island Discs (and they also changed the format to include albums not singles) then Dizzy Heights would be one of my selections.
In November 1996, Ian Broudie was coming off the back of his biggest selling album, the Britpop classic Jollification, as well as THAT song about it coming home, and you could have forgiven him for resting on those laurels of his, and then releasing any old rubbish (like a fair many of his contemporaries did sadly, the amount of substandard follow up albums to big hitters around that time is illuminating).
Not for Broudie, he just made a perfect pop album instead.
From the squelchy synth and faint vocal which precedes the drum blast that kicks off ‘Imaginary Friends’ , which wraps up a tale of woe of someone living such a solitary life in a fluffy pop blanket, through the beautiful acoustic-y ‘Waiting For Today To Happen’, written with Nicky Wire from the Manic Street Preachers, a song which in most hands would be enough to sustain a career for years, but here is just the precursor to the should-have-been-far-more-massive than it was. first single from the album ‘What If’, whose triumphantly catchy ball of sound is as fresh as if it was just out last week (only bands don’t seem to write such anthems these days, do they?).
And just as that fades, you’re sucked straight back in to catchy-land with the Baby Bird co-write ‘Sugar Coated Iceberg’, showing Broudie again to have chosen well (and very much of the time) his writing partners, he was not afraid to get another perspective.
The album’s mid-section ‘Touch And Go’ and ‘Like You Do’ , have a charm of their own with Broudie on fire with his choice of a killer couplet, the former Beatles-like symphony tells of “The past’s a sea of boys and girls, who disappeared without a word, all friends of mine who had their time, then drifted away”, the latter (a song which they named their first greatest hits collection after, despite inexplicably not releasing it as a single) might be so fey that it feels like a gust of wind may blow it off its almost calypso course, again sees Broudie using a gorgeous turn of phrase.
“Be everything you are, cherish what is true, celebrate the ones who need to be with you”, it’s so gloriously uplifting.
There’s a certain feeling of a hazy sadness that infects the album; it would be wrong to call it psychedelic, just an other-worldly pulse that adds a layer of sheen to the already pristine pop on offer. There must have been a temptation to write Jollification part two, but this is more of a big brother to that album, wiser and bigger.
The reflective run continues with ‘Wishaway’, and the most successful single chart-wise from this set of songs, and what is currently their last Top 10 non-international football tournament based hit, ironically the weakest track and one that has not dated particularly well, a cover of The Turtles ‘You Showed Me’, before roaring back into life with the storming shout-along (to be fair all 12 tracks are singalongtastic) of ‘Ready Or Not’, closing out with the stomping oddity of ‘Fishes On The Line’.
It’s been a while since I’ve had an excuse to sit down and listen to the whole album as one entity, and I had a touch of dread as to whether I was misremembering just how glorious it was, especially after witnessing a less than fantastic live performance from them recently, and whether the passing of time would have dulled its joyousness. Thankfully this was not the case, at times I actually had goosebumps, remembering what a time it was, as much as I hate to sound like THAT nostalgic old guy, hence me now running out of superlatives (and now listening to it again as I type this).
A wise man once said “If we can’t change the world, let’s at least get the charts right”, well the record buying public couldn’t be trusted and failed dismally as the album didn’t even reach the Top 10 on release. Ignore those mid 90’s fools, if you are in need of a 42 minute time-out from the misery of this modern life, forget your Be Here Now’s and reach out and find this record, this pop masterpiece.
