Album Review: Shed Seven - Instant Pleasures

Sixteen years after burning out with fourth album Truth Be Told, Britpop also-rans Shed Seven return with more bounce than ever before.

Instant Pleasures is well-named, with all 12 offerings here star-shaping pop perfection with plenty of soccer stall-friendly singalong potential mixed in for good measure. With legendary producer Youth (Killing Joke, The Orb, The Verve) herding them up in a Spanish studio for three weeks, he's tapped into and distilled a terrific energy. The crazy thing is they sound less like their jangly, '90s incarnation and more like Kasabian on the pull with Hard-Fi's commercial gloss, re-enacting the scallywaggish scenes from Trainspotting. In fact, it's more of a shock to hear Youth sound this pop-phoric than Shed Seven themselves.

Take Enemies And Friends and It's Not Easy, for example: the former has a kickin' hi-NRG pulse with a New Order-ish guitar perfect for the 40-something-packed death-disco dancefloor, while the latter's hollering chorus provides the camaraderie that will put old fans arm-in-arm with the new at live shows.

"The change will do yer good!" Rick Witter insists in Nothing To Live Down. For Shed Seven, at least, never a truer word has been said.