Baby Chaos, Love Your Self Abuse (East West 1996)
Difficult second album? No, not at all easy as can be for Baby Chaos. Two years after the first album "Safe Sex, Designer Drugs and the Death of Rock‘n’Roll" the time was right for a band like this.
Big punk rock melodies that were catchy but still held the grunge guitar riffs and attitude. Many other rock bands were doing great in 96 and this band had done all the hard work in touring all over the place to gain a record deal with East West.
This album took many sessions to record and with the band still on the road it must have helped the sound of the album. The first and only single Hello went out and seemed to be missed by the public. Such a shame a great song and one that does the album justice as there were more to come. The first single was really a teaser for what was to come up next.
A video was made for 'Ignoramus' but I really don't remember any promotion for it. Again a great song that really shows the band can do catchy chart rock. Thankfully the album is nothing but classic British rock and one of the finest examples of it. It is a nice mix of punk and alt rock at times as well.
The song titles may show the band were just on tour too much 'Mental Bruising for Beginners' a title that suggest a real heavy song and yes but much like the album it catches you and does not let you go. It is not often you hear a rock song with la la la's on the heavier songs but it works.
'Confessions of a Teenage Pervert' may cause a snigger or two at the title but the song shows the band can be very serious and again vocals from Gordon that are mixed of harmonies and shouting out the next minute makes the title seem weak.
Not at any point in the album does it feel a track is a filler. It may even suffer for not having some proper songs as in catchy three minute songs that have a start and end, the album could easily be one track long.
'Rearrange You' near the end of the album really shows a band intent on making a mark. With britrock all over the music papers it may have been seen as too heavy for the rock fans. Certainly too much for radio and titles like 'Love Your Self Abuse' I may not have been listed on Radio One.
Last track clocks in over 10 minutes and aptly titled 'Loud and Clear' shows what this band can do. Great production and a band that sound so great together even now it sounds fresh and not over produced one bit.
But touring with The Wildhearts, Terrorvison and Elastica should have got the band an audience. They did 130 UK gigs one year not counting trips abroad. Still the rock fans did not buy this album and give the music world one of the most interesting bands to come out of Glasgow.
Not only interesting but utterly unique at the time many bands were trying to write pop songs to be the darlings of the radio and get on Top of the Pops. For many of those bands it did not work and well I suppose my CD collection shows that as they still have dust all over them from not being played as much.
From first single released on there own label to a splitting up they lasted three years and made two amazing albums and this one for me is a fucking masterclass in rock music. Many singles and live gigs all in that 36 months just did not get this band a break. With major label backing and so much touring I have to blame the public, yes you I blame you so make up for it and find this sucker soon.
The album is still available easily on Amazon and E bay. It has been released in Japan and America but with a different track listing. make sure it has 'Loud and Clear' as the last track.
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