Lightning Seeds

Dizzy Heights (EpIc)

the world is only beginning to recognise the true genius of Ian Broudie. No-one else, throughout the ’90s, has made perfect pop music with anything like the consistency of the scruffy Liverpudlian.

1994’s Jollification finally saw Broudie come out from his self-constructed shell and embrace the public proper, taking his soaring melodies on the road for the first time. Dizzy Heights adds considerably to his already glowing repertoire of classic tunes, and, if anything, is more focused than his last offering.

His new sense of confidence is evident right from the off, setting his stall out with the infectious ‘Imaginary Friends’. He even takes time out to poke fun at his previous incarnation as a painfully shy and dejected young man, afraid to leave his room: “Get a life, get a job/Did you know you’re the kind of slob/Who stays in bed all day/I used to be that way.” (‘You Bet Your Life’)

Broudie’s songs always sound so inoffensively catchy that they have tended to be overlooked by “serious” music critics. However, knowing a good tune isn’t his only forte: he has an unerring skill for welding his brilliantly wry, and often bittersweet, lyrics, to some of the most infectious melodies ever written. Some artists spend their entire career attempting to write just one classic. Broudie seems to churn them out without breaking sweat.

From the cartoon pop of ‘Sugar Coated Iceberg’ to the progressive cabaret-meets-hip-hop of ‘You Showed Me’, his songs are a gentle adrenalin rush, more akin to a sugar or caffeine buzz than anything illegal. ‘Fingers And Thumbs’ displays a slightly harder edge, but with Lightning Seeds, that’s like saying that a face-cloth is rougher than a sponge. The closer, ‘Fisher On The Line’, is as close to Syd Barret as it is humanly comfortably to get.

Forget Blur, cast aside Elastica, and forget you even heard of Menswear, Lightning Seeds embody the true spirit of British pop. I defy anyone to listen to Dizzy Heights without tapping their feet, fingers or any other organ in their anatomy. Superb.

John Walshe