This is basically the first 2 S*M*A*S*H singles on one 12'' EP. I was going to do a nice write up on this one but I found one online and this geezer put it better than I ever could. So cheers to "looner" in advance for this great article which I have blatently pinched from Rate Your Music website.
"A spin of this disc recalls instantly the long dark days of post-Thatcher Conservative rule – just as John Major, Virginia Bottomley et _al_ were sliding headlong into oblivion, so too was the British music scene, with Seattle still reigning supreme.
It would turn out that the so called New Wave of New Wave (of which S*M*A*S*H along with label mates These Animal Men were part of) was to be a dry run for "Britpop" - the re-birth of British pop and a rejection of America’s plaid clad hordes. Advocating the use of amphetamines and spouting revolutionary rhetoric, S*M*A*S*H never quite walked it as they talked it, but it was probably as a result of too many ideas and lack of focus as opposed to lack of intelligence or fire. This record can only be listened to when taken in context of the time, it does not compare favourably with the likes of say The Strokes or The Hives, natural heirs to S*M*A*S*H’s punkish rattle, but that’s not to say its without worth.
The controversial, Germaine Greer influenced "Lady Love Your Cunt" still confounds by sounding exactly NOT the way you would expect a song possessing such a title to sound. Still, it features some great lyrics ('She said babe lets go get a cigarette/I know a man who sells singles over there/But he's not open yet')and is a statement of intent in itself ('My ambition is to get some recognition/For my band and it's ideals/Without courting a wheel within a wheel..'). The song's notoriety overshadowed the brilliance of the song itself and is probably the bands finest moment. Opener "Real Surreal", despite some obscure lyrics (probably the point considering the title) is a solid rocker and probably the most "punk" the band ever got, and it leads perfectly into "Drugs Again" an affecting and strangely beautiful ode to love over narcotic induced catatonia. The haunting lyrics of "Revisited No3" ('suicide is not painless..'- a pun intended at the expense of the bands name - is a nice touch) based on the true story of a friend’s suicide and the songwriters struggle to come to terms with his own implicit guilt are perfectly pitched with the stark acoustic intro and the abrupt drop into furious full band version. Closer "Shame" with its lighter hearted lyrical content ('I got a job through nepotism - you got two years in Pentonville Prison')is a surprisingly bright 60’s almost folky pop number at odds with both the bands image and reputation in the press, and granted the band their one and only Top Of The Pops appearance.
Within months they would release the travesty that was their debut album, and within a year they would be forgotten completely as the record buying public (and more importantly the music press) were swaying to the new laddisms of Oasis, Blur etc, but S*M*A*S*H is an interesting footnote in the history of British 90’s indie rock if something of a period piece"
Tracks
1) Real Surreal
2) Drugs Again
3) Revisited No3
4) Lady Love Your Cunt
5) Shame
