Give Yourself A Hand

Crash Test Dummies have always distinguished themselves from the rest of the posse with their highly literate (and often dauntingly dense) lyrics and their apocalyptic vision of the human condition in the last decade of the millennium.

Give Yourself A Hand is an exercise in irony that’d do Bill Hicks or, indeed, Tom Waits proud. They’ve played the circuits, they’ve exhorted their audiences to wheedle every nuance and gesture from their music. Now, though, it’s time to shake that booty and do the funky thang.

Two things that will shock you into submission: Brad Roberts’ bass tones regularly whoop and holler into the outer reaches of soprano-land, and the smoky, erotic vocals of Ellen Reid step to centrestage for three wonderful tracks that utterly change the traditional CTD sound forever.

‘Keep A Lid On Things’, the first single from the album, is a funk-sodden surefire radio hit, and a first taste of Roberts’ dramatic vocal reincarnation.

Elsewhere they’re playing peekaboo with shifting identities, dabbling in polite industrial noise (‘A Cigarette Is All You Get’), carnal lust verging on stalkerdom (‘I Love Your Goo’), and Waitsean gothic grandeur (‘Playing Dead’).

But it’s when Ellen Reid sallies forth to the mike that the 1999 version of Crash Test Dummies really lets loose. ‘Just Chillin’ is 3 minutes of jazz-funk (with, oddly, shades of Michael Franks) that’d sit as well late on a Friday night in a jazz club as it would on a Clint Eastwood movie soundtrack. ‘Get You In The Morning’ owes its sass to Madonna and its louche self-belief to the likes of Des’ree or even Lauryn Hill.

Give Yourself A Hand oozes sex and rock ‘n’ roll (not so sure about the drugs) like nothing the band have done before. A dramatic departure from their last, muted album, A Worm’s Life, this is still a sophisticated affair that’ll challenge cigar-toting dilettantes and boys in the ‘hood equally. One for the slow burner.