Review:
Tarantula

ROLL UP! ROLL UP! Only seven days left to decide whether Ride's fourth and last voyage into sonic alchemy is genius or junk; the stuff of much critical brow-furrowing 20 years hence (' la The Verve), or destined to gather cobwebs in the basements of second-hand record shops Camden-wide for eternity. Because, dear readers, at the moment 'Tarantula' feels like neither and both; lost classic and grand folly rolled into one. A record for everyone and no-one. For one week only.

For clues as to why Ride's final release has turned out this way, we need look no further than the gatefold sleeve of their last one, 'Carnival Of Light'. Here the band are, clanging away in the grounds of the studio (mimicking The Who's 'The Kids Are Alright' cover, inevitably), and looking the very incarnation of four people from four completely different groups: Andy Bell, in pin-stripe trousers and tousled mod-god hairdo, thrashes away sleeve left; Lol goons away shamelessly behind the kit; Steve plods away methodically on the bass, every inch a man keeping his head down and doing his time. And then there's Mark, legs crossed, disinterested, staring off into the middle distance as though he'd rather be anywhere but here, lost in the middle of Andy's late-'60s fantasyland. And on 'Tarantula', Mark's even less noticeable. In fact, for long periods you can barely notice him in the blizzard of Andy's flagrant tune robberies.

So 'Black Nite Crash' - a title swiped, like the album's, from Bob Dylan's 1966 novel of the same name - is a burnt-up dose of early Black Sabbath; 'Dead Man' is, quite simply, Lynyrd Skynyrd's 'Sweet Home Alabama', and 'Dawn Patrol' is Steppenwolf's 'The Pusher'. And all of them, minus the howling fury which made these songs classics in their own right, are instead paralysed by Andy's wafer-thin singing style. Here is a man, who, for all his gorgeous guitar playing (and there is some stellar stuff here), simply isn't the one to articulate the words which should soar away on top of it. Yet this has been Ride's problem ever since Andy Bell threw away his My Bloody Valentine albums and gorged himself on the mystical delights of the long, lost past in the first place. Where once Mark Gardener's gossamer-lite vocals drifted perfectly over the sonic barrage of 'Chelsea Girl' and 'Leave Them All Behind', causing critics to gush wildly about the group being forebears of some new, thoroughly contemporary psychedelic dawn, on 'Tarantula' Andy's equally fey voice just sounds thin and unconvincing. Put simply, the power-chording blues which dominate this album demands a singer who can wrench the sufficient emotional intensity from it. It's Stone Roses syndrome; the need for a voice to match the ballistic blues behind it. So, alas, even when 'Tarantula' approaches greatness it somehow falls short.

There are lovely moments; the chiming, Byrds-like 'Walk On Water', the dreamy ode to his wife, Idha, 'Sunshine/Nowhere To Run', even the cavernous, organ-submerged lament 'Ride The Wind', but they never come together to form the epic collection of songs that Ride always seemed capable of providing. And that's before you get to the real clangers. Like a solo, acoustic 'Castle On The Hill', the erm, spoken word segment of 'Deep Inside My Pocket', and the general quality of the lyrics ("As the day breaks over our caravan/And you lie beside me like a lamb" from 'Mary Anne' springs to mind). But still, it's the mood of regret that shimmers just below the surface of the album that eventually wins out.

Andy may find solace in the love of his girlfriend in 'Sunshine/Nowhere To Run', but it's the opening lines that touch you: "Hear the engine running as the tour bus pulls away/The sadness of the road will be the death of me one day". So we get a record full of dead ends ('Black Nite Crash', 'Dead Man'), fleeting, idealistic escape ('Starlight Motel', 'Castle On The Hill'), and, always, a desperate urge to get the hell out of here.

NME 1996

recorded in London, 1995
engineered by Richard "Digby" Smith and Paul Motion
mixed by Mark Freegard for 140dB
except track 7 mixed by Andy Bell and track 5 mixed by Mitch Easter
featuring Nick Moorbath (piano, hammond, rhodes) and Jeff Scantlebury (percussions)
designed at negativespace