Those with long memories (and I mean elephantine) may recall Ultrasound. Yes, the band with a fat bugger of a singer ironically known as ‘Tiny’. He had a terrible haircut, and the band were fleetingly hailed as ‘the new Radiohead’. And that’s why you should never listen to the crazy hype that surrounds so many new bands. After one album, that seemingly (belly) flopped despite all the rave reviews and TV exposure, they vanished. End of story, right? Apparently not. Ultrasound have got it together to release their follow-up album. 13 years on from their debut, it’s been a long time in coming, but not necessarily long-awaited.
Still, it’s a brave move to show their haggard, ageing faces again after so long. It’s also brave to open an album with a spiky indie anthem that’s six and a half minutes long in 2012, and ‘Welfare State’ contains the lines ‘we’ve been away for a while / but we were never in style’ (and if you need proof, just check out the album cover). It then spirals into an expansive middle section before surging back with another biting refrain.
‘Beautiful Sadness’ is part Stranglers, part Shed Seven, while ‘Twins’ is, well, the kind of spiralling, self-absorbed indie that was ubiquitous in the 90s in the wake of the Stone Roses. The jangly sub-La’s baggy Byrdsian wank that is ‘Nonsense’ is appropriately titled. ‘I’m useless and I’m ugly / no-one understands / no-one really wants me / I’m much too old to make it now’ croons Tiny, and it’s hard to disagree, especially as the second half of the album is largely occupied by pedestrian plodders that really don’t go anywhere, with closer ‘Sovereign’ being too turgid to be anthemic.
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The prog tendencies that characterised their previous album are fully indulged here, with over half of the tracks sitting around the six minute mark. But how does prog rock sit with indie and Britpop? Ok, so it’s not as painful as it might be, and there are actually some half-decent moments lurking amongst the dross on ‘Play For Today’, but the question is, who needs it?
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