Black Grape - Orange Head - The Singles, Reviewed

Black Grape - Orange Head - The Singles, Reviewed

Following the breakup of 90s indie titans Happy Mondays, vocalist Shaun Ryder and best mate Bez rose from the ashes, teaming up with rapper Kermit and producer Danny Saber amongst others, and forming Black Grape. Their debut album 'It's Great When You're Straight...Yeah' in 1995 was described by Ryder as "what the last Mondays album should have been", and he wasn't wrong, the record seamlessly combining indie, dance, rap and funk into a fantastic musical melting pot, resulting in multiple hit singles. While their second album before their breakup, 1997's 'Stupid, Stupid, Stupid' wasn't as well received, I still loved it, and when the group reformed as the principal duo of Ryder and Kermit, teaming up with super producer Youth and releasing 'Pop Voodoo' in 2017, I thought that was brilliant too. So on an album basis, they haven't missed yet, and now, with Youth at the helm again, they're releasing their brand new album 'Orange Head' on November 3rd. I was sure it would be nothing short of great given their track record, but let's have a look at the singles to see if it bears out.

Pimp Wars

For fans of Black Grape, or indeed new listeners, I’d say this was a pretty great introduction in all honesty, providing a perfect representation of the mix of styles prevalent in the music, and with some characteristically vivid lyrics and bombastic vocals to accompany it. To go into the instrumental in more detail, it’s bursting with colour from end to end. The vibrant horns act as the perfect triumphant opening, underscored by a snappy, funky beat and flourishes of Carribean style percussion. In addition, the subtle melodies coming from the soulful organs, and the doubling up of the horn lines with funky guitars work very nicely as extra layers or splashes of sonic interest, and all the extra little fills throughout are great too. They’re perhaps a bit more subtle, but they definitely add to the madcap vibe overall, in fact the whole thing musically feels like the soundtrack to a slightly wild Mediterranean holiday, which for Black Grape is definitely a positive. It feels as if as the track builds, all the elements become more and more prominent, not only in the dramatic bridge that’s a cool moment of high tension, but also with the continually developing horn soloing on the choruses. It’s just very enjoyable and infectious, again, a real danceable, pure party vibe. The vocals do well to match this too. With Kermit, he just offers two very convincingly delivered, swagger filled rap verses that work very well with his slightly gravelly tone of voice and are a great compliment to the vibrancy of the instrumental. Some might take issue with the second verse being a little more “shouty”, but to me it makes sense, because to me that’s the appeal of Black Grape to a t for the most part really: it’s fun, catchy, colourful, funky, zany, and in-your-face in the best way. Same goes for Shaun on this track, while his contributions are relatively minimal, just handling the chorus and the odd bonkers half-rant on the bridge, but I think it’s the push-and-pull report that him and Kermit have going that makes it work so well, Kermit’s more confident, cool demeanour contrasting really well with Shaun’s bombastic, shouted, yet still very catchy chorus, almost as if he’s inhabiting the character of a mad circus barker. Again, personality is the word I keep coming back to. I’ll say this too, I’m sure anyone in their right mind would never think a song seemingly about the dangers of pimps could be this fun, but here we are, and yeah, lyrics like “bad driver, muff diver” are ridiculous, but we’ve kind of come to expect that by now I would’ve thought. So yeah, anybody who may have been sceptical about the quality, or indeed the need, for new Black Grape music in 2023, I should think this would do more than settle your concerns. They’ve come back, doing what they always did, and sound like they’re having lots of fun in the process. What more could you want?

Milk

Like with ‘Pimp Wars’, there is definitely stuff to be enjoyed about this track, but I’m also quite a bit more mixed on it than the aforementioned track. For starters, some of the things I like: the drum beat is yet again very nice, taking a pretty straightforward, strutting disco beat and making it sound super beefed up, with the subtle clangs of the cowbells working effectively as a nice bit of percussive texture, as do the additions of clap sounds, in addition to the occasional switches to amen breaks throughout the track being a nice touch too. Another positive to this track comes from the other half of the rhythm section, with the bass having a really cool, grinding, gurgling, yet subtly morphing and evolving sound to it which is really nice. This track, like the last, has so much swagger, but maybe in a different way this time. Furthermore, a lot of the zany sound effects throughout the track and the various smatterings of organs and keys again just help to add some more colours and textures to keep the track interesting, and the mad, wah-wah guitar solo that ends the track off is pretty sick too. As far as the vocals go, this is definitely more of a “Shaun track”, and fittingly enough I think he does really well here. Again, his delivery is brash, it’s in your face, it’s mad, some may find it annoying but for what it’s going for I think it works, laying heaps of personality on an already peppy beat, and while some of the vocals, particularly on the second verse are pretty insane, I do still find them quite fun. Some might also ask what my definition of “fun” is, but all I can say is that this falls under it. He just seems to have this knack for turning seemingly non musical deliveries into super catchy refrains, I even think his one word “swang” refrain on the chorus works decently enough. Again, no fucking clue what he’s talking about (“I need to call the quacks, the fucking pig is back.” Huh?), but I’ll reiterate, for me I go into a Black Grape track looking for catchiness, fun, some linguistic tomfoolery here or there, and I get that here. In fairness to Kermit though, he does also have a pretty decent showing, at least on the pre-chorus, with that subtle tinge of melodic drama and intensity making for a pretty cool moment. However, as seemingly positive as I've been about the track so far, it definitely has its drawbacks. Namely, the track has a very linear structure, i.e verse, pre-chorus, chorus, verse repeat, and so it can get pretty repetitive after a while and just doesn’t really have the ideas to fill five and a half minutes. This becomes particularly evident when in Kermit’s verses, rather than eight lines, you simply get four lines repeated twice, not to mention the multiple refrains that get repeated at least three times, and without a bridge in sight, it does drag on. By that same token, it probably could’ve done with a bit more meat on the bone melodically speaking. Like sure, the beats and bass are cool, as is the guitar solo, but the melodies we get otherwise are pretty scant, mostly relegated to a handful of organ flourishes or subtle synth lines and the like. It definitely could’ve done with more. So this song definitely has a sense of fun to it, but I just think it needed a few more ideas to justify the runtime and really make the most of itself if that makes sense. A few more melodies, a few more lyrics maybe, but from what we get, it just feels like they had some good ideas, but weren’t sure what to add, and just kind of left it, which is a bit of a shame.

So as far as what my expectations are for the rest of the album, I’m maybe not quite as excited as I was when I first heard a handful of tracks off ‘Pop Voodoo’, but that doesn’t mean I don’t think this won’t still be a great album. From what I can see they have all the hallmarks of a pretty wicked album from the singles already, so I suppose it’s simply a case of whether that quality level is upheld. Again, some may say we don’t need a new Black Grape album, or that the shtick just maybe lost its novelty, but for me, if the music’s good (which so far it mostly is) I frankly couldn’t care less. They’re having fun anyway, and so am I.