Sounds From The Junkshop #55 - Crashland

 

"Maybe I just got here too late but everyone seems out of their minds/They say they think this century's great but I can't wait to leave it behind" - Crashland - Waiting For Someone

It's a truism about music that we've repeated many times in the long and winding history of Sounds From The Junkshop that timing is everything when you're a new band. And I suspect Crashland would grimly nod and mutter about that more than most. Had they emerged two or three years earlier they would have been in prime place to catch a ride on the Britpop train (or before that the New Wave of New Wave), a couple of years later and they'd probably have fit right in with the post-Libertines indie renaissance (and given how poor a lot of the bands lumped in there were, they'd have been in with a good shout of being leading lights of it). The reality? They emerged blinking into the sunlight during the great indie drought of 1999-2000 and never really stood a chance.

Crashland were from Bristol and the first I heard from them was when their second single Standard Love Affair managed to get Single of the Week in both the NME and Melody Maker as well as being played a lot by Steve Lamacq on the Evening Session. It picked my attention up because Crashland basically sounded like a New Wave of New Wave band (see past articles on These Animal Men, S*M*A*S*H* etc). I picked up the EP and although the A-side was good, it was actually the two B-sides that grabbed my attention a bit more, the whiplash riff of Little Dreams (which sounded like a punkier version of first album Supergrass) and the wistful Waiting For Someone, their best song, which seemed to be about those evenings when you arrive late at a party and everyone's got drunk without you leaving you feeling like a proper fish out of water ("I hear your vain and shallow regrets, don’t tell me you’re as good as it gets"). Having signed to Independiente who'd just struck gold with indie nice boys Travis' The Man Who album, the future looked pretty bright for them.

Unfortunately for whatever reason it just never happened for Crashland - subsequent releases New Perfume and the TAM-style Modern Animal slowly crept a bit higher in the charts but they never made that crucial breakthrough into the Top 75 despite the fact that they toured like absolute bastards (I saw them sharing bills with Wilt, King Adora and My Vitriol, the latter of whom they ended up having a bit of a spat with in the music press for some reason that time has forgotten) and the album Glued missed the charts altogether.

As I've mentioned, I saw Crashland live quite a few times during my later days at Keele and they always had an impressive sparky energy to them, as I've mentioned before they were kind of like a less confrontational These Animal Men albeit a version that still had plenty of piss and vinegar to fire them along. I s'pose the harsh truth is though that while Glued had a few good songs on it such as the frenetic Submission and the yearning Sun In My Eyes and We're On Fire, it just wasn't quite "all killer no filler" enough to give them that big push overground with a few tunes like Lemonade which were just massively forgettable.

Crashland found themselves dropped pretty quickly after Glued bombed - one further indie-released EP, Devotion (not a particularly strong effort sadly, lead-off track Karaoke Ballad at least had a bit of a kick to it but the rest was eminently forgettable) and they were no more. The sad irony is that, like I say, they were arguably a band who just landed that crucial two or three years too early - certainly there were a fair few groups in the whole post-Libertines rush of new British indie bands (that ultimately congealed into the dreaded landfill indie movement) where my first thought was "hang on, these guys sound like Crashland..." I guess further proof that in music, bad timing really can cost you massively.

I'm not sure what happened to Crashland after their brief brush with almost-fame - Wikipedia has singer Alex Troup now living in the States and fronting a band called Troup at some point post-Crashland but other than that, no idea. I guess they were kind of a typical "sod it, let's try this and see what happens" band from this era when the major labels were willing to take a chance on pretty much anything that might have an outside shot of being the next big thing but usually weren't. Still, Glued is available on Spotify and while it's not quite a lost classic, there's certainly a few tracks on there that are worth a listen. Certainly those like myself who lived a wasted youth dying their hair black and spiking it and wearing a lot of Adidas might well find a lot to enjoy here that they missed first time out.