Elastica's debut album may cop a riff here and there from
Wire or
the Stranglers, yet no more than
Led Zeppelin did with
Willie Dixon or
the Beach Boys with
Chuck Berry. The key is context.
Elastica can make the rigid artiness of
Wire into a rocking, sexy single with more hooks than anything on
Pink Flag ("Connection") or rework
the Stranglers' "No More Heroes" into a more universal anthem that loses none of its punkiness ("Waking Up"). But what makes Elastica such an intoxicating record is not only the way the 16 songs speed by in 40 minutes, but that they're nearly all classics. The riffs are angular like early
Adam & the Ants, the melodies tease like
Blondie, and the entire band is as tough as
the Clash, yet they never seem anything less than contemporary.
Justine Frischmann's detached sexuality adds an extra edge to her brief, spiky songs -- "Stutter" roars about a boyfriend's impotence, "Car Song" makes sex in a car actually sound sexy, "Line Up" slags off groupies, and "Vaseline" speaks for itself. Even if the occasional riff sounds like an old wave group, the simple fact is that hardly any new wave band made records this consistently rocking and melodic. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine