AN EMOTIONAL FISH: “Sloper” (Blue Music)

The Fish have suffered for their art, taking the brunt of the slings and arrows of outrageous critics for initially signing to the ‘wrong’ Irish record label and for being somewhat careless in choosing the ‘wrong’ music industry connections. If this offering had been their debut album and on their own label things might have been oh so different. In that respect, Sloper, in reality their third album but their first for the new Blue label, is just like starting over, a low-budget high-octane affair that might finally convince some entrenched doubters why there was such a buzz in the first place.

Perhaps it’s the absence of the corporate millstone, but whatever the reason, Sloper brings you a re-energised, reborn band. The absence of self-serving producers and their budget-devouring, gratuitous production antics allows for some welcome natural space. Given room to manoeuvre the band’s overall performance, particularly Gerard Whelan’s vocals, reflects an outfit at last relaxed and at ease with their craft and sometimes sullen art.

The Bowiesque ‘Time Is On The Wall’ is already familiar to Irish radio listeners but it’s only a mere whiff of what follows. Along the way you will be treated to some shimmering harmony vocals from ex-Black Velvet Band Maria Doyle on ‘Summertime’ and the Gram Parsons-like ‘Aeroplanes’, some spine-tinglingly delicious country-tinged guitars, including Joe Ryan’s pedal steel, and overall a more acoustic perspective from a band whose abilities were too often submerged under a blanket of studio-induced fury which too often signified too little. Gone, almost entirely, are the somewhat irritating and self-important Whelan poses of yore and instead you get a gentler, more romantic visionary with his head in the clouds but his feet firmly welded to planet Earth.

Thrill to the seductive chord sequence and searing lead line of ‘Summertime’, or the country folk rock of ‘Clowns’ with its crisp Hank Marvin guitars and you begin to ask yourself where has this incarnation of the band been hiding all these years. The sturdy simplicity of ‘Dirt’, despite its debt to the Velvet Underground, slips under your guard to insinuate itself inside your skull where it nags away at you day and night. ‘Other Planet Girl’ blends some soft Sowetan-style guitars with a nifty melody, a lyrical paean to a somewhat spaced out woman and an arrangement that reveals more and more on repeated plays.

‘Leoncavallo’ is a sharp sprint with its fast and furious guitars drowning vocals which are too blurred for you to distinguish whether the track has any connection with the 19th century classical composer of that name, but it crosses the finishing line long before you get too concerned about it. ‘It Belongs To The World’ lopes along quite innocently before exploding right in your face with all the grace and charm of a letter-bomb.

‘Disco Vera’ rocks out with the best of them and is one of those rare instances of a rock band creating a decent slab of dancefloor fodder, but nearly all of the songs sound intriguing enough to have merited the inclusion of lyrics and some more readable sleeve credits.

Of course it’s not all perfect. An Emotional Fish have always worn their influences on their musical sleeves, and like choosy kleptomaniacs they only steal from the very best. The raggle-tagglery of ‘Happy Families’ owes too much to Lloyd Cole and its kiddies chorus detracts from what could have been a convincing social cameo. The spoken intro to ‘Mistake Factory’ provokes the observation that not many Irish people actually talk like that, but fortunately the guile of the song works its spell long before the squall of guitars at the end awards a points decision in favour of the band.

Whelan’s vocal style often walks a tightrope so dangerously close to Lou Reed and/or Lloyd Cole that you almost find yourself checking for the safety net, as on the slight ‘Air’, for example, but his new-found conviction generally compensates and in no time the songs have become as familiar as the members of your own family.

It’s not always sensible, or fair, to link song lyrics to real life, but the pleading, apologetic and confessional ‘Superman’, whose protagonist desperately wants to be more than he feels he is perceived to be, could be the motto for the entire album.

Sloper might just be the ideal soundtrack for the post-slacker generation. An Emotional Fish’s future starts here?

• Jackie Hayden