Alabama 3
Exile on Coldharbour Lane
Elemental 1997

The best band in Britain and this is the first and best of their two CDs. (Hopefully I’ll have an interview with them on here soon.) I’ve never met anyone who didn’t like them. The genre? ‘Sweet acid house country music,’ to quote the men themselves. Plus a stirring of gospel, communist propaganda and Brixton low-living. I understand there’s a high proportion of ex-smackheads in the band (perhaps an interview will confirm this), which may account for why they’re so good.

This is the kind of record made by people who’ve been storing up songs, jokes and grudges for years. The density of references, samples and puns is amazing. Practically every line is talking about two things at once, while the music samples something else again. I’ve listened to it dozens of times and I still hear things I haven’t heard before. It’s a one-off. No one can be this obsessive twice.

The general public is most likely to have heard them through ‘Woke up this Morning’, the theme tune to The Sopranos (could this be an excuse to talk about how much I love that programme? I’ll try to restrain myself) and it’s actually good enough to merit that position. Apparently the creator of the series, David Chase, was planning to have a different introductory song each episode until he heard the song and realised how perfectly it fitted. It’s a typical example of their brilliance: a country/blues hard-life complaint over a thumping dance beat with a dose of acid-house bleeps on the side. (They even appeared in a tiny, low-budget TV commercial slotted into a Sopranos advert break, which was a truly strange thing to see.)

If I had to pick a favourite, though, it would be ‘Hypo Full of Love’, their merciless mockery of the 12-step programme. (During the time I desperately and misguidedly attended NA meetings, I could never hear the Steps being read out without remembering the Alabama 3 versions, which was probably for the best.) Well, maybe it’s just personal bitterness, but to me this is a work of epic genius, ripping the whole sorry business to shreds.

Nor should any review pass without mention of ‘Mao Tse Tung Said’, a cheery musical reminder that ‘change must come through the barrel of a gun’, which seems to sample some kind of communist summer school and sounds even better live while the entire band and audience stand with fists raised in the communist salute. (They can be fantastic live, coming out with excellent comic banter and making up alternative lyrics to the old favourites, which is one way of dealing with the boredom of having to perform the same songs over and over again. However, I’ve also seen them making no effort whatsoever.)

Well, I could go through the whole album explaining why each track is so great, but I’ll keep it to an honourable mention for ‘She Don’t Dance to Techno’, a ballad about rave casualties done to a fairly straight country backing, fiddles and all. Or maybe ‘Peace in the Valley’... No, enough. Truly intelligent music, those are my final words.