The Farm – Hullabaloo

The melodies aren't terrible here, but they suffer from lack of edge. There's little that is particularly memorable about this album. I didn't dislike it when it came out and I still don't...but it's pretty bland. The Farm tracks that worked really well in the late 80s and early 90s were suffused with the current dance rhythms of the years they were released. I think that a lot of groups that had hits in the early 1990s based on adopting club-friendly sounds had significant difficulty navigating the changed musical climate in 1994 when rock bands dabbling in indie dance were on the decline and grunge-influenced rock groups were in the limelight. Perhaps that's partly what this album's track "The American World" is about? Britpop wasn't quite in full bloom in the UK yet in 1994, either. In any case, this album lacks that dance/indie fusion but also doesn't quite reconcile with the more aggressive guitar sounds listeners wanted in 1994, and what results here isn't enough to keep the songs afloat. That said, a few are decent enough, including "Hateful", which attempts to jump on the old "Spartacus" groovy traintrack, albeit with a bit darker vibe and more edge to the guitars.