After seven years of money-spinning reunion shows, 1999’s Wonderful saw Madness finally return to the studio to make their first album of new material in a decade-and-a-half. All the essential components are in place, including sharp-eared producers Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley, but something doesn’t quite gel…
The opening single, Lovestruck, does a deft job in turning back the clock, and could easily have come from the band’s earlier purple patch, but elsewhere there’s a niggling feeling that the band are trying too hard to replicate the sound of yore, studiously ignoring the fact that times – and the players themselves – have changed. It’s as if they consider the progression and maturity of their previous album together, 1985’s Mad Not Mad, a misstep and are striving to re-establish their prior Nutty Boy credentials.
That said, the Bontempi bounce of Saturday Night Sunday Morning pleases, as does the ghoulish comedy of Drip Fed Fred with guest vocalist Ian Dury. A bonus disc of B-sides and selections from the Our House stage musical makes for a value-packed purchase, whatever the shortcomings of the parent album.
