Big Cheese
September 2004

Wreckless Eric
Bungalow Hi
(Southern Domestic)
Legendary pop punkster has his stab at prog tomfoolery.

Wreckless Eric is a hero to many. So it induces a series of small heart attacks when the opening song, 'Bungalow Hi' opens as ambient noise and distortion swirls. Wreckless Eric has obviously decided to push his artistic boat out and the result is patchy, where once pop aesthetics and punk rudiments made up his songs, now it's snarled vocals over bashed acoustic guitars and discordant synth lines. Some of it works really well. 'Same' is an angry explanation of the universal rearing process. '33s + 45s' a Bowie like poem set to a glam shuffle beat. His lyrics are as sharp and humourous as ever, and he does, essentially, capture a certain terror we all find in the mundane nature of everyday life and surroundings. It just grates a bit to have 12 songs that never resort to the classical Wreckless Eric pop charm, that's all.
John Falcone

prog rock...??!? Where the fuck have you been?




I can't imagine anybody who's been in this game as long as I have not pushing their artistic boat out. Does he expect, or would he prefer me to treat it as a mundane chore and re-record some of my old numbers, but better this time due to advances in technology?

For patchy I think you can probably read contains instrumentals. I don't know what pop aesthetics are but snarled vocals and bashed acoustic guitars sound to me very much like the punk rudiments they're supposed to be replacing. My earlier work contains a lot more snarled vocals than Bungalow Hi where, contrary to the opinion of some critics, I've been congratulated time and again for the quality of my singing.
Same is not an explanation - I'm not explaining something - and it's actually about the quality of life, aspiration, hope and desperation, not growing up. 33s & 45s has got nothing to do with David Bowie and I have never heard of a glam shuffle beat. He probably mentions glam because of the bastardised Chuck Berry/Little Queenie riff on the end part of the song which was re-popularised by Marc Bolan in T Rex.

I hate the word humourous - any hint of hilarity fades away with the use of it. Humour is a word I'd put in room 101.

Finally at the end of the review we find out why there's been, shall we say, a bit of an atmosphere - the bloke was hoping to hear what he thinks I do, not what I actually do.