Album Review: Cornershop - "England Is A Garden"

 

Now here's a blast from the past. Ignoring the obvious Fatboy Slim remix, Cornershop were a band who I kind of drifted in and out of listening to back in the day, first becoming aware of them as an angry punk band thrown in with the riotgrrl scene with their right-on diatribes about racism in the early '90s, laying into BNP boneheads and idiotic apologists like Morrissey with righteous abandon before resurfacing with the eclectic but rather wonderful When I Was Born For The 7th Time which begat their mega-hit Brimful of Asha.

Thereafter though, they went rather quiet - I was aware of the follow-up Handcream For A Generation but wasn't exactly blown away by the lead off single Lessons Learned from Rocky I to Rocky III and kind of drifted away from them. Now, a decade and a half later, here we are with Tijinder and Ben's first album in well over half a decade. And it's one of the more pleasant surprises of 2020 so far.

What Cornershop have done here essentially is create a lovely laid-back collection of summery alternative music right from the marching drums and organ of opener St Marie Under Canon. Slingshot veers between upbeat reggae and psychedelia with its trippy flutes before No Rock Save In Roll kicks things back up a gear with Stonesy guitars and soulful backing vocals - think Riot City Blues era Scream but a bit more muscular and you wouldn't be too far off. Everywhere That Wog Army Roam sees the band returning to their anti-racism roots but does it with a singalong upbeat summer tune reminiscent of The Hit before Fatboy Slim remixed it. Angry sentiments with a killer tune to hook into your brain on top - why can't more groups do this sort of thing nowadays?

Highly Amplified and Cash Money almost sound like the Kinks with bhangra leanings you can see both of these gently pouring from the stereo on a summer's day in the garden over a few cold drinks before I'm A Wooden Soldier steps things back up a notch sounding like a great lost late era T-Rex out-take (think Futuristic Dragon era). All of which just leaves the jangling sitar led One Uncareful Lady Owner and the epic The Holy Name (nine minutes long but crucially it sounds a lot shorter which is always a good sign) to steer things home with aplomb.

Cornershop have really come up with the goods on this one - England Is A Garden is a great summer album with the group throwing everything but the kitchen sink in but, in the best Boo Radleys style, never letting all that additional instrumentation bog the thing down at the expense of the tunes. And with some, as always, presciently nail on the head lyrics about the sad state of this country buried just beneath the surface for you to dig for, they've ticked off all the boxes for a good album in fine style here.

You can buy England Is A Garden via the Cornershop Bandcamp page and I would very much recommend that you do so.

NITE SONGS RATING: 🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌑🌑 (8/10)