CHERRY RED
The latest release in Cherry Red’s Fall Sound Archive series sees the tracklisting of the prolific outfit’s 25th studio album stretched to occupy four sides of red splatter vinyl. Before you ask, the TLC in the title stands for ‘traitors, liars and cunts’, referring to the three members of the band who quit during the middle of a disastrous US tour the previous year. The emergency replacements went on to become permanent fixtures and were credited by MES, the very definition of an unreliable narrator, as an important factor in the band’s late-period revitalisation. If you were to put the 25 in order, Reformation wouldn’t trouble the Top 10, but it does have its qualities. While Smith’s voice is all but shot, his prowess as the scribbler of amusingly obtuse lyrics remains intact, as does his unshakeable allegiance to the power of repetition.