That tag of “The Next Big Thing” never seems to fit all that well with some. The Last Great Dreamers had it in the mid 90s and it never quite happened for them. They came back a decade or so ago. Gigged tirelessly, released great album after great album. And still the breakthrough they deserved never really occurred.
Their two main men went off into different directions, but for Marc Valentine, one half of the pair, there’s a need to create what is perhaps best put under the “power pop” banner, even if – in typical style – it never quite fitted.
Which leads us to “Basement Sparks”, his second solo album in a couple of years. It kicks off with “Complicated Sometimes” which is everything we’ve always known about Marc Valentine. The effortless catchiness, the guitar line that fizzes like a tube of refreshers, the fact it sounds as full of beans as a three-year-old on a Sunny Delight bender.
Quite honestly, he is a brilliant songwriter, “Tyrannical Wrecks” underlines that, and there’s a bit in the middle which slows down just so it can build up to its crescendo.
And we need to talk about his choruses. These are hooks so big you can hang your winter coat on them. Everywhere you look, there’s something wonderful. “We were restless, we were bored”, he sings on “Skeleton Key” – yet at the same time sounds anything but.
I guess that was ever the way with this music. His music if you will. From Silver Sun onwards (I always mention them because their debut album was seminal to me) it’s always wrapped up a serious message in an upbeat tune.
It’s up to you how you enjoy work like “Eve Of Distraction” – where it slows down a little and relies on its harmonies – just make sure you do.
. “I Wanna Be Alone”, right in the middle of “…Sparks” would have fitted right in in any decade of this type of music. “I wanna be alone” he offers again and again, yet simultaneously sounding like it’s the last thing he needs right now.
The album’s first real ballad – and in many ways its centrepiece – the wonderful “3am Anderson Drive” , has a real glam rock thing going on, and the fact that this is coming out on Little Steven’s Wicked Cool label is perhaps shown best of all by “Strange Weather”. Straight from the US heartland, “how did California disappear so fast?” it wonders rather plaintively.
Valentine always manages to find a chug to his guitar. It’s right to the fore on “You’re One Of Us Now”, while “Opening Chase Theme” is a couple of things. It is aptly named for one, given its energy, but the very definition of a three-minute pop-rock song for another.
It’s not the only one on this wonderful collection. Back in the mid-90s CJ and Willie Dowling formed Honeycrack from the ashes of The Wildhearts. They only released a couple of albums. “Proziac” remains one of my favourites to this day. It’s hard to listen to “Repeat Offender” and not think about the band in honesty.
It’s typical of the skill on show that it ends on a note that you weren’t expecting. The piano-led “Ballad Of Watt” has a touch of Ian Hunter. “Sing along to the saddest song, if it makes you feel alright, but I lost my baby and everything’s wrong tonight.” Everything apart from the obvious, though: It makes for a wonderful song – and as Therapy? always say: happy people have no stories.
Songs and stories, though appear to fair old burst out of Marc Valentine. “Basement Sparks” is proof again that he is one of the very best at what he does. In another life, somewhere else, this gives him another gold disc to polish in his downstairs bog. Sadly though, he might just have to settle for the knowledge that he is a truly brilliant songwriter.
Rating 9/10
