Crazy On The Weekend by Sunhouse
 
Crazy On The Weekend / Hurricane / Chasing The Dream / Spinning Round The Sun / Good Day To Die / Lips / Loud Crowd / Monkey Dead / Hard Sun / Swing Low / Animal / Second Coming

Roo gave me this album for my 44th birthday. June 14th 1998.
 
As soon as I put it on I loved it. I loved the sound. It took a bit of time to really appreciate it, but the old trick of putting a new album on a C60 and playing it loads in the car proved successful. It used to be that I would get home and put on a record and leave the autochange off. This meant that when the record finished playing the last track on side one, it would start again with the first track. As I wandered around my extensive flat in Harlow, tidying up, cleaning, dusting, cooking, washing up, marking exercise books I would quickly get to know side one of a new album. It would seep into my subconscious and after a dozen plays I would be ready to sit and listen to it properly. These days with a CD and a bigger house where the music cannot really be heard from another room, life is much more complex! So the C60 format is invaluable. This album and the Strangelove album became the soundtrack to unemployment during the World Cup and the trouncing of South Africa in the Test Match (thank god for Angus Fraser's batting). And I achieved familiarity by having the albums on in the car. Then one day, I discovered the true depth of "Swing Low". What is this song about? One lonely night I played this song about twenty times in the dark whilst Roo watched ER and I felt the despair and loved the way that after the first rendition of the "chorus" the drums, violin and keyboards take over for thirty seconds and amplify the depth of despair and hopelessness.
And after the twentieth hearing I let the next track play. I hadn't really discovered Animal up till now, but when it all goes pear shaped and loud I just stood transfixed with the headphones on in the dark wondering how it is possible to feel more emotion than this. And slowly but surely the whole album came together for me. Every track is precious as Monty Python very nearly said. "Lips" is a beautiful song. The way Gavin Clarke sings "me" throughout this song is sublime. A bit like the way Bianca says "Bep-aye" but just a tad more soulful. Every track is good. And a great Star Trek reference ("Today is a good day to die"). There's a great hidden track as well. It's called Second Coming and it's preceded by the sound of Gavin Clarke looking forlornly out of the window of his fifth floor flat in the middle of a large impersonal city. The street below is full of life, cars driving happy people out for a great evening and the singer has to endure another lonely night and contemplate his life and what he can do to redeem himself. Well, that's how I interpret it - listen for yourself.

I love this album.