Moorcock & Bull

No, of course I've not read loads of Moorcock.

Blush.

THE ELRICS - Demo


Despite the Moorcockian moniker, The Elrics do not sound anything like Hawkwind. No hint of a whooshing keyboard, not the merest sniff of patchouli, nary a glimpse of a naked, gyrating dancer. In fact, on the opener, “She Doesn’t Exist” at least, they sound like simple, leather clad rockers, which is pretty much the antithesis of Tolkien ‘n’ toking hippy excess. The track is a forward driving scuzzy roadhouse chug that inevitably recalls the beercan rock revisionism of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. The vocal is a little adenoidal, and almost sounds like Suede without the drama, but that aside it’s a decent little rocker, and the highpoint on this demo.

Sadly “Living In England” takes us on a downturn, with a light slice of ersatz 60s pop, which might well be playing in the British Home Stores café at this very minute, for all we know. It’s not terrible, but the vocals have moved on to a mid-Atlantic Molko whine, and it shows a pretty powerful lack of inspiration. “It’s easy to forget the world/ When you’re living in England” claim the lyrics – perhaps you can equally mislay any sense of reality when you’re inhabiting some fugue state consisting of flimsy recreations of rock history, hmmm?

“Cynic” is equally artificial, a cheeky piece of frat house fun that bumps along like a happy jalopy filled with mythical spring break revellers, guzzling root beer, mooning vicars and copping a feel on the back seat. Although we’ve pretty much given up on the vocalist by now, the song is functionally pleasant, proffering plenty of solid bass work and some chiming guitar interjections. Weirdly the vocals become far less enraging on “Failure”, and the song is a winning college rock canter that falls short of R.E.M. and ends up hitting The Rembrandts, but is no tragedy for all that. We could imagine hordes swaying and singing along to this in a sweaty club, and even if we can only imagine this happening on the set of Friends, that’s still nothing to be ashamed of.

In the final analysis, The Elrics are something like a second hand car from Exchange & Mart: reliable, smooth-running, likable, perhaps a little clunky and old fashioned, but hard to criticise. If you end up with them you know you’ll have got a good deal, but it won’t stop you remembering that there are better options out there; just bear in mind that it could have ended up much, much worse.