Sinister: Trembling Blue Stars, NME review

[Gerard Wood]

TREMBLING BLUE STARS
Lips Taste Of Tears
(Shinkasen/CD only)

EVER SAT CRYING ALL NIGHT OUTSIDE THE Burger King where she said you
smell and dumped you for him? Do you appreciate the comedy of Sean
Hughes? Own a large collection of cardigans because they're 'comfy and
stylish'?

Answer 'yes' to any of the above and you are probably already familiar
with the work of softius maximus Bob Wratten, ex-Field Mouse dribbler
and now Hug Czar as singer of Trembling Blue Stars. You probably sleep
with last year's debut album 'Her Handwriting' under your pillow and
call it by a pet name. And you will be scared out of your mousy wits by
'Lips That Taste Of Tears'. Hey losers! KABOOM! The Softy Hiroshima has
arrived!

And Wratten pilots the cardy-pop Enola Gay to perfection. He lures in
the unsuspecting wallflowers with a soppy title and the wispy, lispy
piano meanderings of opener 'All I Never Said' then WALLOPS them in the
face with proper rock tunes, great swathes of spooky Glasto-electro
breakbeats and, on 'Made For Each Other', a chest-bursting orchestral
chorus that makes Embrace sound like, well, the last Trembling Blue
Stars album actually.

The 70-odd minutes may be dotted with the odd Lightning Seeds pastiche,
and Bob still sings like a neutered Neil Tennant, but even this can't
detract from 'Lips...'' achievement. For this is the record that finally
drags softy rock out of its bedroom, torches its safety blanket and
kicks it into the big world of rock with the challenge to make something
epic of itself. It returns in modest triumph.

8/10

Mark Beaumont
Review courtesy of NME


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And if you've got nothing better to do over lunch, try
http://www.spe.sony.com/movies/spiceworld/quiz.html ...

baby waltzer



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