REVIEW : Quicksand Manic Compression (Island)

- Martin Bate

Quicksand's debut, Slip, was one of *the* debuts of 1993. They combined Fugazi's upbeat hardcore angst with Helmet's occasional yearning drawl (think "Unsung") alomg with the ferocity and dynamics of both bands to sound simultaneously extremely sad and extremely pissed off.

Their second album, Manic Compression, doesn't change their style too drastically. There's a little more of a traditional punk edge and an increased knack for a big pop chorus, both of which could be construed as an Offspring influence if it weren't for the fact that Quicksand's hardcore credentials stretch back at least as far as Epitaph's biggest band.

The opener, "Backward", is a melodious but off-kilter clenched fist clocking in well under two minutes before "Delusional" drops into gear on a chugging riff and Walter Schrieffel's mocking "You want to tell me so bad/Who is on your guest list". This then explodes into a soaring sneer of a chorus, "Save it for one of your/other friends/or your many fans". Wonder who he's talking about.

The rest of the first side tears past - 6 songs in 15 minutes - in similiar cool fashion. In particular, "Divorce" is a speedy two minutes of screwed up and knuckled down anger and "Simpleton" uses an acoustic guitar on the verses that shouldn't work as well as it does, before the smeared sledgehammer riff on the chorus.

All this is is even more commendable considering the songs manage to shine through a fairly awful production. For a major-label album, the sound is surprisingly cheap and one-dimensional with the drums in particular sounding weak - the snare drum sounds like someone hitting a biscuit tin. It is obviously the sound they wanted but I can't work out why, as the songs lose some of their potential power.

Things go even more awry on the second side. "Landmine Spring" begins the side as a potential hit - a mid-paced, MTV-friendly, 'alternative' rocker, behind which lurks some bitterly disappointed, unfriendly lyrics like "Did not expect this shit at all/To go through this again". This is quickly followed by the tumbling hate-fuelled riff of "Blister" but then the album just seems to lose its momentum. There's a succession of songs which seem to have all the right elements in place but have lost some of the guts and passion from inside. The clincher is the awful closer, "It Would Be Cooler If You Did" - a six and a half minute dirge which sounds like a Candlebox ballad, albeit one played by Fugazi.

So, the first two-thirds of Manic Compression is an excellent album despite a slightly dodgy sound and the last third is listenable if a little uninspiring and disappointing. Lets just put things down to it being the 'difficult second album' and get our asses along to the live shows.