Staff Reviews

The Raincoats - The Raincoats

Review by Chris Power

Gloriously ragged, The Raincoats are among the better adverts for the DIY empowerment of punk. »

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a remastered, self released matt digipack with a 12 page booklet cd version of seminal post-punk combo the raincoats' debut album originally released in 1979 on rough trade. this reissue comes with a bonus track - debut single 'fairytale in the supermarket' plus some live footage from 1977 and 79 and the video of 'fairytale' from 1995. formed in the late '70s by singer-guitarist ana da silva and singer-bassist gina birch, the raincoats recorded three albums with an evolving cast of players before splitting in 1984. like the vaselines, interest in the band from nirvana's kurt cobain helped lead to a mid-'90s renaissance; rough trade reissued the band's three albums in 1994 with liner notes by cobain, and the reformed raincoats released a fourth album, 'looking in the shadows', in 1996, and have performed live sporadically since. a triumph of lo-fi amateurism over musicianship, the raincoats took as their blueprint sound a harsh blend of clashing guitar, shrill violin and ramshackle drumming; but could still fashion songs of the most heart-breaking beauty out of such crude materials. 'fairytale in a supermarket' is extraordinarily emotional; while a cover of the kink's 'lola' sung by three girls flirts with sexual ambiguity.
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