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 15 songs speed by in almost 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.
