McCarthy - Complete Albums, Singles and BBC Collection

9/10
Paul Nicholson 9th January 2015

McCarthy were the late 80s equivalent to Sleaford Mods. No really!

Without the aggro. And not laugh out loud hilarious. Oh, and the frontmen were a shade apart. Not much sign of casio action here either, although guitarist Tim Gane went onto embrace that with Stereolab. So, what a bab account this is...

Back to the point, this is chock full of serious, soaring melodies, tight drumming and searing accounts of broken Thatcherite Britain and some prophetic words about greedy Uncle Frankers (still basking in all that glory,here today, right now). Malcolm Eden's nasally, girly vocals are so beautifully fragile and are a perfect match.

And I'm only talking about the Peel Sessions, included here. I passed over their later albums(again included here) but a listen proves that they were worthy of attention

To my mind, back then, there was only McCarthy, Wolfhounds and My Bloody Valentine worthy of homegrown attention, when pitted against all the glorious stuff blasting out of the USA clutching the punk baton.

McCarthy and Hüsker Dü were jostling at the top of my Walkman 'playlists' depending on which strain of depression needed company that day.

The Manics were bang on about these.

Party on, kids.