Dig Yourself Deep

We Say...

Review by Johnny Black

As all too many bands have discovered to their cost, releasing one of the greatest singles in pop history as your first record can be a disastrous career move. Although they made a clutch of perfect pop albums, Derry’s finest fivesome were never able to live down the fact that their vinyl debut, "Teenage Kicks," distilled the quintessence of everything that was great about '60s pop and delivered it with the furious energy of '70s punk. As a result, subsequent hits like "Jimmy Jimmy" and "My Perfect Cousin," which would have been hailed as works of pop brilliance in any other context, paled by comparison. Although they were loved by the critics, and notoriously the all-time favourites of the UK’s uber-deejay John Peel, the band never quite recovered its momentum. When Feargal Sharkey packed his unique warbling vibrato vocals and quit for a solo career, it was all over.

The ‘tones songwriting duo of John and Damian O’Neill ploughed on for years as the worthy but uninspired That Petrol Emotion and it wasn’t until 1999 that they had the nerve to resurrect the old band, replacing Feargal with the less distinctive Paul McLoone. This, their second album with that new line-up, suggests that bringing in McLoone was a much smarter move than it immediately appeared.

Engaging though it was, Sharkey’s voice was so idiosyncratic that it limited the writing options for the band, pushing them towards a mannered quirkiness that ultimately did them more harm than good. McLoone, on the other hand, is adaptable and versatile, sounding equally at home with ton-up punky raves as he does with the kind of mellower material the O’Neills (and bassist Mickey Bradley) are tending to write as they head towards middle age.

The album’s title track tries a little too hard to hark back to the glories of "Teenage Kicks," but they’re clearly having a lot of fun with "So Close," which sounds like '60s garage-punk a la the Standells or the Seeds. By the time they hit "Bradley’s Him Not Me" they’re in full flight, with a song that fizzes with more energy than you could hope for from a band half their age.

"Precious Little Wonder" finds Paul McLoone at his most Feargalicious, and there’s an unexpectedly jazzy shuffle underlying "Fight My Corner." But the real surprises come with the stomping "Easy Way Out" and the somewhat smoother "Happy Valley," both of which sound like nothing more than lost classics from Paul Revere and the Raiders.

This won’t rocket the Undertones to international superstardom, but they probably don’t expect it to. Dig Yourself Deep is clearly music made partly just for the sheer fun of it, and partly to reward the faithful. That said, if this eminently enjoyable and gritty romp succeeds in rebuilding the kind of devoted fanbase they once had, it might just be the platform for a revival that could make them more popular than they’ve ever been.