Single of the Week

THE BLUETONES
Bluetonic
(Superior Quality Recordings)

SUMMER'S NOT dead! The 'Tones have lassoed the sun and shunted it straight back up the nation's collective nostril. The Bluetones used to live in a house with Dodgy and thus know all about harmonic triumph. Ten leagues more refreshed than 'Are You Blue Or Are You Blind?', 'Bluetonic' is incorrigibly cheery, an earth-bound Stone Roses blown across the horizon by the breathy winds of the Dodgy investment in choral good-times perfection for serenading from chimneys on half a glass of El Dorado and a soul full of hope.

"Don't put your faith in time/She heals but doesn't change," shimmers Mark Morriss and then sacks the maudlin for the universal delight of "When I am sad and weary/When all my hope is gone/I walk around the house and think of you with noting on" which may be about the members of Dodgy but probably isn't and is set to become an anthem of the year.

Backed by the acoustic country loveliness of 'Colorado Beetle' and the billowing strum of 'Glad To See You Back Again', they sound like they've been welding these glass-blown baubles for years (which they probably have been). Yet another band of pop-perfect poseurs do not let us down; frankly, it's becoming ludicrous - the whole world has turned into Jamaica without the guns (near enough) and there will doubtless be some horrific pay-back in 1997 when everyone sounds like Powder. In the meantime, rejoice!

Article by Sylvia Patterson

Extracted from nme, 30th September 1995