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This is a highly overrated pile of modern and not so modern rock clichés served up with enough attitude to get Oasis through the next ten years. I think I've heard about ten hours of new music each week during the last year and I really don't remember any of the singles some commentators claim blew our hungry minds away. Opener Vaporizer for instance sums up a good deal of what is second rate throughout. It would be instructive to observe how these "tunes" were composed. One can imagine the lyrics prewritten and grafted awkwardly onto some inane riffs. Having heard this track a few times I can only remember a sort of too-rye-aye cry shouted along with the dullest riff imaginable. As dull as the riff in the final song The Jam That Ate Itself which resembles Zeppelin at their clod hopping, scraping the barrel for a half-decent idea worst. Several of the noisier, rockier tracks resembled the drug addled, drug fuelled swirl of confusion encountered in the last few Primal Scream albums where the drugs of choice seem to have been mainly uppers. Lupine do downers and put out charming records like this in order to share their clapped out hippie/punk (there's no difference that matters at this stage of spiritual decay) egocentric world view for fifty five minutes. Almost any verse can be cited to illustrate what we're dealing with but lets grab this, the third verse of track eight, This Condition "Anxiety pulsing in waves / And the feelings hung over with hate / And my worried mind polluted and drained / This condition I'm in is coming to you." No it fucking isn't. This record can bring you down and wind you up. Lets reach out to Lupine Howl with a positive message. Get out a bit, maybe go bowling with the boys and have a laugh, start ballroom dancing and there meet a big boned beauty, get the motor running, crank up the Beach Boys and cruise out west. Yes go west. Go anywhere but not back to bed.

Stephen Ridley
CWAS #8 - Summer 2001

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