In 2005, Universal inked a deal that allowed them access to the BBC’s cavernous archive of radio sessions, but is the barrel empty so soon?
Cattiness aside, there are a couple of surprises on this download-only collection. The first session, from 1990, finds a very different band from the constipated trad-rockers of Moseley Shoals, blending gentle, Byrdsy psychedelia and a bassdriven Stone Roses groove. Yesterday Today shows they once had a way with a heart-bursting chorus, and Sway offers the unlikely spectacle of singer Simon Fowler affecting a dark, Jaggerish sexiness. Fast-forward six years though, and that imagination and variety is gone, in its place the earnest, chugging sound that (along with Chris Evans and Oasis) made them famous.
The problem isn’t their retro stylings: their mentor Paul Weller was mining the same musical seam at the time and striking gold. OCS, though, had too much reverence for their idea of classic blues rock to actually play it convincingly. They could throw all the tambourines, tablas and bellow-lunged backing vocalists they wanted at tracks like Song Of A Baker but, however hard Fowler bashed away with his godawful Joe Cockerish mid-Atlantic whiteblues hollering, they always sounded like an impersonation.
