The "other" heavyweight/major (yes, that's right the Strap have SOLD OUT, if you care about that kind of thing) release of this month was Dawn of the Replicants second album Wrong Town Wrong Planet 3 Hours Late. The band are generally regarded as being clinically insane, but as we know that's often a pre-requisite for success in the music industry. (Fact: Alan McGee has a sign on his desk "You don't have to be mad to work here, but it helps if you're related to me"). The rumour was that Creation wanted to sign the Replicants to boost their bonkers image, but they've patched things up with eastwest and got this album out.

It's a good one, and deserves to be heard by as wide an audience as possible - people say it's similar to their debut One Head Two Arms Two Legs, but that's not true to my ears - in fact, it's lacking any of the more 'sensitive' songs such as Candlefire or Mary Louise - it's a much more RAWK album, which is obvious live - but on record they've augmented their sound with brass and strings - not in the cynical/cliched way that pop groups do these days with string sections popping up everywhere, but everything sounds "right" when they do it. Single Rule the Roost is indeed perhaps the most rocky (if I can use that term) track here, while Gasoline Vine, for example, is more complicated, somehow experimental and commercial at once. They also include a couple of cameos recorded at home, little minute-long snippets which, similar those the Nectarine No. 9 sometimes do, break up what can be a barrage of sound.

Lyrically, they are indeed bonkers, now a friend of a friend tells me they are down-to-earth normal boys, but from this album you wouldn't want to live in the Scottish Borders lest one of them move in next door to you. Science Fiction Freak sums them up, as it happens, they're not really from another planet, wrong or otherwise, but maybe they wish they were...

Copyright © 1999 Stuart McHugh