A Year of Blind Spots: H.M.S. Fable

Joe is working through a list of albums that he considers "blind spots," i.e. albums that he's never heard but feels like he should.

H.M.S. Fable

Shack

1999

What 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die has to say about H.M.S. Fable by Shack:

Little wonder that H.M.S. Fable sounds so wonderful. It was made by a band drinking a final pint in the last chance saloon. These soulful songs of hardscrabble life on the streets of Liverpool were the culmination of almost two decades of musical graft, terrible misfortune, and crippling addiction. The jaunty rhythms and shouty chorus of "Lend's Some Dough" belie its subject matter—the need for cash to buy a fix of heroin. Ditto "Streets of Kenny," a windswept folk song about a fruitless drugs search in the run-down neighborhood of Kensington.

Brothers Mick and John Head never shied away from their problems. They were open about the fact that their second album, Waterpistol, was fueled by cocaine and ecstasy, that the "side" project The Magical World of Michael Head and the Strands was a heroin album. Before all that, there was Mick Head's time in the Pale Fountains, a great "lost" band revered by Echo and the Bunnymen's Ian McCulloch, but whose love of Burt Bachararch [sic] was 20 years too early. In a grim twist, Head's songwriting partner in "The Paleys," Chris McCaffrey, died of a brain tumor, aged 28.

So H.M.S. Fable is the Heads putting all that behind them and digging deep. Their love of West Coast American pop shines through on the chiming "Since I Met You." "I Want You" is Arthur Lee's Love relocated to Merseyside. "Beautiful," "Natalie's Party," and "Comedy" are soaring pop songs, aided by Youth's lush production.

This is the sound of a fabled but troubled British songwriter making it through to the other side.

What Joe has to say about H.M.S. Fable by Shack:

It's pretty fascinating that the above description of this album does not once utter the word "Britpop." Because that's clear what this is. You'd know Britpop if you heard it, because you are around my age, and have heard "Wonderwall" more than 20 times. To define it, though, you might say that it's '90s alternative rock that acted as a reaction to both grunge and shoegaze by purposefully hearkening back to the focus on pop-based hooks as exemplified by the previous generation's Beatles, Kinks, and Who. That is Shack. (I suppose you could argue that Shack formed in the '80s, before "Britpop" as a term was invented, but predating a genre term does not disqualify someone from that genre.)

I had never heard of Shack prior to seeing their blurb in the book, but I am still considering it a "blind spot" due to genre alone. If I'm being honest with you, I really don't give a shit about any of the popular '90s Britpop bands. Couldn't give less of a fuck about that Oasis reunion. I've struggled with Blur, the Verve, Suede (Pulp seems to be the exception, if they are indeed Britpop, which is debatable). Not saying that I dislike every song, because I like the hits. I'm more saying that every time I've tried to dive deeper, I'm met with music that I didn't particularly care for or about. I usually chalk it up to my aversion to British pop culture, but Shack is making me think there might be more to it.

Because: I really fucking like this album, and it's quite British. It's not perfect, but the jangly pop sound is hitting me in ways that Britpop never has before. And I don't even know if I could explain the difference. The only thing I can think of is my ambivalence toward Oasis is more due to being worn out from the hits and feeling exhausted having to go through the other songs on the long (as all CD albums must be in the 1990s) albums. Shack gave me an opportunity to start fresh, to see the beauty of Britpop for what it is, not what it claims to be to move units. It's just beautiful guitar-focused pop music, that's all. That's good enough for me.

The sound isn't new but the band is, and I think that's what worked for me. That the band is new to me also means that the blurb from the book is nothing but helpful. It's sad to think that an album as pretty as H.M.S. Fable could be framed as "the album they made after the heroin." But it's helpful too in framing it that way, because then it becomes a story of redemption. "How a band on the brink came back and made what is easily the best and most complete Britpop album that some asshole in Philadelphia U.S.A. has ever heard in his lifetime." I don't know if that makes me want to explore Shack any further (don't wanna press my luck), but it's great for what it is.

Maybe if you're really into Britpop—like say, for instance, you are dropping $2k on Oasis tickets—then this sounds like a watered-down version of the same. I'll happily cop to being in the minority here. I don't care about Britpop, but Shack was able to break through for me. Who am I to question the magic behind it?