Listening through for the first time to Berryland, the second record from Seattle's Berries, felt very much like being immersed track by track into different parts of my record collection. Starting off with Makes Me Sick which plants its feet firmly in the ooze of British Rock of the Mid-Nineties, (Radiohead's Planet Telex, Oasis and the Verve are all called to mind), the record wanders off elsewhere but relentlessly triggers memories of other artists without ever really mapping out fresh territory for itself.
Not that this writes it off completely. Far from it. You only need to look at the entire career of Primal Scream for evidence that being in obvious and constant debt to others doesn't discount a band or record from being worth listening to by any means. Berryland is in some ways a very good album. It's just not really entirely The Berries own at any stage.
So what else did I hear as it ran its course? In many ways it's a schizophrenic record as it divides its spiritual debt pretty much evenly between Anglo and American forebears. I ticked off late Beatles, Stones, Faces, Badfinger, Teenage Fanclub, Big Star, Crazy Horse, Black Crowes and myriad others. It's a record for and by the wasted, splayed out on velvet cushions at two in the morning, evoking a mood that doesn't really promise much for its makers state of mind although there's no little songwriting discipline on display here.
So if you like any of the bands I've listed here, I'm pretty sure you'd find much to enjoy on Berryland. It has a stoned momentum that kept me onside despite the fact that I wished the band had added a bit more of themselves and less of their tastes to the pot. Still, if you go for Record Collection Rock (a term I think first minted by Simon Reynolds, who I've posted a link to here), it's one of the better albums of that type you'll hear this year.
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