We've been down this road before so let's not disgrace ourselves again: when you hear and see so many self-serving platitudes about The Great Irish Music Industry and so much uncritical celebration of the (at best) mediocre, it's instructive to think of those genuine talents who have been let down, and badly, by this great music industry we delude ourselves in thinking we possess. Two of the best songwriters this country ever produced, Stephen Ryan and Paul Cleary are, to the best of my knowledge, doing day jobs not connected with music and are shamefully relegated below the genetically-modified music of The Corrs.
The Stars and The Blades we'll come back to, but another band who may soon be shunted off this fabulous music scene we just can't get enough of are the mighty Frank and Walters, who are the best melody-mongers we have in the country.
In their orange velour loon pants and speaking with impenetrable Cork accents, they were amongst the scariest Irish bands ever to hit the streets of Camden when they launched their Indie invasion of the UK. Welcomed with open arms by Keith Cullen's Setanta label, their first few EP's got them every Single of the Week award going in the British press, and a few front covers to boot. The songs were, and still are, near-perfect slices of three-minute pop thrills: Fashion Crisis, This Is Not A Song, After All and Trainspotter.
However, just as After All went Top 20 and got them on Top Of The Pops (in the same week as The Sultans - Cork's equivalent to The Stone Roses/Happy Mondays - appeared on the same programme, hence all the "Corkchester" references which were good fun for about five minutes) their new label Go! Discs hit the wall. Their next album The Grand Parade (a great piece of work) eventually snuck out on good ol' Setanta a few years too late and right in the middle of the Britpop fiasco. Even with songs like Colours, Russian Ship and the sublime How Can I Exist, the album got lost amid so many piss-poor 60 Ft Dolls efforts - and then, when the Tindersticks came running to re-mix How Can I Exist, the Franks demurred and wouldn't release it as a single (and they can't blame anyone else for that act of idiocy).
Shunned by those who once hailed them as the saviours of white pop, The Franks took off to New York to dream it all up again (as they like to say in The Point Depot at a Christmas gig). The following missive from the band, remarkably free of music-industry speak, sums up the last few years for them: "We're pissed off and depressed, pissed off with major labels, journalists, agents, promoters, managers and publishers. Depressed because we are living in a shit hole one-room apartment in Brooklyn with no money, depressed because we just are. The songs on this new album represent the last two and half years of our lives, what it feels like to be 5,000 miles away from home on Christmas day, what it feels like to to be in love with your girlfriend when she lives on the other side of the world, what it feels like to be broke, lonely and frustrated. . ." Anybody suggesting that this band needs a PR image makeover has missed the point, I think.
What they have brought back with them from New York is an album called Beauty Becomes More Than Life, and it's an instant classic. We always knew The Franks could write great songs, but here they've surpassed themselves in places. The first song Plenty Times (and the first single) is a rollicking summer anthem that, given the airplay, will storm the charts for them. Track after track impresses, but particularly worth mentioning is the touching Simple Times, the excellent chorus of Time We Say Goodbye, the classic organ-driven Today and the belting Until The End. When they're on form, as they are here, nobody does it better.
We could have done without the egregious excursion into electronica that is 7.30, a track that should be deleted from all future pressings of the album because The Franks doing their "Tonight, Matthew, I'm going to be Orbital" impression is not a pretty sight.
It don't matter though, this is a great album from an ever-great band, and maybe if we all hold hands in a circle and conjure up positive vibes, The Franks will get what they deserve - a hit album.
Now a four-piece - they've a new keyboardist called Sarah De Courcy - they head out on an Irish tour starting at Dolan's Bar in Limerick on the 26th, on to Temple Bar Music Centre on the 27th, Rosin Dubh in Galway on the 28th and Sir Henry's in Cork on June 4th. Go to the gigs, buy the album. You know it's right.
Beauty Becomes More Than Life is on the Setanta label.
