FEATURE:
Second Spin
Ocean Colour Scene - Moseley Shoals
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FOLLOWING their somewhat…
underwhelming eponymous debut came the confident and brilliant Moseley Shoals. Ocean Colour Scene’s terrific album of 1996, it celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary last month. This is an album I bought when it came out. As a twelve-year-old, it was quite an exciting album to get! Epic hits like The Riverboat Song and The Day We Caught the Train are among the very best of the 1990s. I have been writing a piece or two about Britpop lately. I am not sure whether one could say whether Birmingham’s Ocean Colour Scene were part of the scene’s elite - though Moseley Shoals was definitely part of the Britpop conversation. Even though, in 1998, Q magazine's readers voted Moseley Shoals the thirty-third-greatest album of all-time and it was ranked at forty-two in Pitchfork's 2017 poll of The 50 Best Britpop Albums, I think that many people have overlooked the album. In terms of critical response, it has certainly divided them. In 1996, maybe Ocean Colour Scene were viewed as being outsiders or not as strong as other Britpop bands. Some since have said the album is a little dated and only worthy because of its two biggest and best-known singles. I am going to bring in a couple of contrasting reviews. The first, from NME is from 1996:
“Ocean Colour Scene, the lucky buggers, are one of the chosen few (the others include the late (?) Stone Roses, Primal Scream and Cast, obviously. The main policy committee will be meeting to discuss the merits of The Bluetones shortly). OCS are in the firm because they sound like a mod Free with paisley shirts instead of stretch denim, because they make real blues explosion music that exists in a timewarp between '66 and '75, and because guitarist Steve Cradock is Weller's right-hand session man and bassist Damon Minchella has also done time with the Modfather. Actually, that's all a little unfair on OCS. You don't have to work in a guitar shop or rehearsal studios to dig their 'Scene (although it probably helps). There's plenty to be admired on 'Moseley Shoals', their follow-up to '92's House-Of-Love-gone-slightly-wonky eponymous debut. The musicianship, especially Cradock's fluid guitar, is immaculate. Simon Fowler sings with a rich and powerful, if overly-mannered, voice, and songs like 'Fleeting Mind', which sounds like Arthur Lee from Love in charge of an acoustic Cream, and the epic psychedelic finale 'Get Away' soothe with a warm, soft beauty.
But too often the push for musical authenticity grates. Why the repeated solos, why obscure decent tracks by shoving a dozen different guitar sounds into one song just to prove you can, why the constant preening and showing-off? We know you can play. It was the songwriting that people doubted.
Still, if you're looking for a progressive blues band in 1996, then rest assured that OCS would've punched their weight in the late-'60s when this stuff was regarded as almost cutting-edge.
Free and early Chicago (oh God, who's sadder? Those who imitate early Chicago, or those who notice it?) would've been proud to have produced 'Moseley Shoals', and for those still fascinated by the genre - Wellah! Wellah! - then this must represent some modern-day epitome. But, please, if you're playing with this stuff at home, remember there's more to excite you from music's vast canyon than '60s psychedelia and old rockin' blooze”.
It does seem a little unfair that Moseley Shoals received tepidness and some criticism. I think that it is a really solid and interesting album from a band who have split critics through the years. Go and listen to Moseley Shoals and I know that there is plenty in there for everyone.
There are those who hold love and time for Moseley Shoals. I’ll bring in another point of review. In their more considered, fairer and positive review, this is what AllMusic had to say a few years ago:
“By the time Ocean Colour Scene released their debut album in 1992, they were already considered has-beens. The band had formed during the height of Madchester, but they never released their first album until the scene was already dead, which left them without a following. But between their debut and their second album, 1996's Moseley Shoals, a strange thing happened -- the band was taken under the wings of two of Britain's biggest pop stars, Paul Weller and Noel Gallagher. The band suddenly catapulted back into the spotlight because of its superstar connections, but the music actually deserved the attention. Ocean Colour Scene had spent the time between their two albums improving their sound. On Moseley Shoals, they are looser, funkier, and have a strong, organic R&B vibe that was inherited from the Small Faces and Weller's solo recordings. They sprinkle Beatlesque and Stonesy flourishes throughout the album, as well as the odd prog rock flair, adding an even more eclectic flavor to their traditionalist pop/rock. Ocean Colour Scene are still developing their songwriting skills -- the sound is more impressive than the songs throughout Moseley Shoals -- but their second album is an unexpectedly enjoyable record”.
Moseley Shoals is by no means a perfect album. I would not rank it as one of the best of 1996, though it is far stronger and more appealing than it has been given credit for. I want to actually wrap up with an article from The Guardian. Published in 2016 (to mark the album’s twentieth anniversary), it is clear Ocean Colour Scene did not deserve so much flak:
“Today marks 20 years since Ocean Colour Scene’s Moseley Shoals entered the British charts. It was the band’s second stab at success: their self-titled 1992 debut sunk without trace and they’d been honing the follow-up for four penniless years. “We knew it was good,” said guitarist Steve Cradock. “We spent a lot of time working on it.” Championed by Radio 1’s Chris Evans – who loved The Riverboat Song so much he made it the theme tune to TFI Friday – it screamed in at No 2 and stayed in the top 10 all summer, buoyed by support from Paul Weller and Noel Gallagher. The real reason for its success, though, was simpler: it was an absolute gem of a record, by a brilliant group of musicians.
Nostalgia aside, though, how does Moseley Shoals stand up in 2016? Playing it again, I found the answer was: surprisingly well. There are a few obvious flaws. Some tracks, such as bangy piano rocker 40 Past Midnight, feel like filler, and I’ve never liked the droney You’ve Got It Bad. Then there are the lyrics, which – thanks to frontman Simon Fowler’s writing method of improvising into a cassette player – can be cryptic, to say the least. “Like a king who stalks the wings and shoots a dove and frees an eagle instead,” he sings on Riverboat. Quite! When the lines do make sense, they tend to reach for regulation Britpop images of suns, shadows, shoes and roads. Just thankfully no keys to any doors.
Musically, though, the album still prompts an all-out assault on nearby drummable surfaces. The Riverboat Song’s scalding riff – “It came from me being really pissed off one day,” says Cradock – still makes me lip-bite like David Brent and reach for my air Gibson. The Circle is a flat-out masterpiece, all the way from its feedback fade-in to its lovely, shredding outro. There’s depth, too: beyond encore favourite The Day We Caught the Train there’s the sorrowing One for the Road, the sweetly complex It’s My Shadow and Lining Your Pockets, with its pertinent lyrics about greed. Fowler’s achingly tuneful croon is light years ahead of anything his contemporaries offered: less laddy than Liam, less hammy than Damon, more sincere than Jarvis. This is still, I realise, an album I’d sooner put on than many of the others I loved in that era, including Different Class, Expecting to Fly, All Change, and even possibly Definitely Maybe.
On the 20th anniversary of this brilliant album, it seems a perfect time to pay tribute to a group who took more flak than they really deserved, and whose chief crime was probably only that they were a little too normal. “There is an edge missing from the band’s material that could perhaps be provided if these four unassuming guys hated each other more, or were suffering a bit more,” wrote one Telegraph journalist in 1998. Mmm. By way of contrast, I’ll leave you with a comment from a YouTube user, Andy, who wrote under the video for The Circle: “Brilliant song. Nothing fancy. Nothing pretentious. Nothing over the top. Just simple, beautiful music with lyrics that conjure up a thousand thoughts and situations”.
I have been reacquainting myself with Moseley Shoals after I saw a lot of social media posts on its twenty-fifth anniversary last month. I love the album in 1996 and, despite a few weaker tracks, there is plenty to appreciate and be captivated by on the band’s second album. In spite of some critical backlash and others who were not bothered, I think that the excellent Moseley Shoals…
WARRANTS a new look and listen.