Though it's wise to expect he unexpected, sometimes there's just no preparing yourself. Most must have imagined that, with All About Eve split and the guys (ex-Swarm and ex-Church) scattered and seeking fortunes elsewhere, singer Julianne Regan would be winsomely rocking in some quaint country cottage, composing fey ballads for grizzled, beardy consumption. No one would have laid money on her debut album turning out to be one of the most aggressive releases of 1995. And, by denying access to fans and critics alike, thrashing a clear path through a fearsome minefield of rock stylistcs and often simply creating abug-eyed and absolutely filithy noise, that's exactly what it is.

It's utterly bizarre - until you consider what Regan has actually been up to all these years, because The Innocent contains more than casual references to it all. There's the hi-octane racket of the Eve's first single D For Desire and the simplistic structures and (very, very occasionally) the pained sweetness of their debut album. Theres's the edgy variety and quiet bitterness of Scarlet And Other Stoies, the big rock sensibilities of Touched By Jesus and the Curve-recalling white-out psychadelia of the foolishly neglected Ultraviolet. Add to this a touch of stilted Sixties, still unfortunately de rigeur though rarely this fucked-with, and a welter of melancholy, beautiful and thoughly tested metalics (remember the Eve's, keen labelmates of Metallica, hired both Levitation and Cranes as support) and you pretty much have it - an album completely understandable in all its components, that really ought to fall apart at the seams

That it doesn't is clear testament to Regan's ambition, curiosity and ability to learn. It's also probably got a fair amount to do with the requisitioning of Bic, guitarist with Levitation and the deliberately obtuse Cardiacs. Bic's distorted chopping is all over The Innocent, bursting into the opening Mat's Prozac as Regans voice, clipped and harsher than before, slips from pop melody to tannoy abrasiveness. Messed Up and Dolled Up seem Blur-ish though musically, one hiding a brilliantly maudlin pop-rocker and the other descending into idiosyncratic histrionics, both are more like the Cardiacs produced by Stephen Street.

Trumpet Song , starting like Gonna Make You A Start, builds to what appears to be a mocking guess at anticpated reviews, while the bleaky titled Puppydog Trail seems a plea to be allowed to grow up in public. Star and Blue Sonic Boy are thrown into glorious relief by truly monstrous metal invasions and the closing Julie Christie sounds like Satie beefing up the Persuaders theme. A great finish.

That the album holds on to so much lightness of mind and spirit is fairly miraculous. An often moving, intriguing album, a clear statement of self in 1995.

Dexter Ward

October 1995 ikon