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The return of Elastica

by Mark Woodlief

Five years between albums is a long time in the pop business, especially when you're in position to capitalize on the success of your debut album. But after they'd established themselves as one of alternative rock's more promising newcomers in the crowded class of 1995 with a homonymous debut that topped the British charts and went on to move more than half a million units in the US, five years is exactly how long it's taken Elastica to deliver their sophomore CD to the American market. Part of the delay can be chalked up to the band's decision to leave Geffen/Interscope for Atlantic here in the US -- The Menace, which came out in England back in April on Deceptive, was finally released by Atlantic in August, and the band are now supporting it with a tour that brings them to Karma in Boston this Saturday. And then, for Elastica frontwoman Justine Frischmann, the past few years have been full of the kind of personal distractions that can get in the way of a new album, from her much-gossipped-about feud with the band's former guitarist, Donna Matthews, and the departure and return of bassist Annie Holland to the end of her long relationship with Blur frontman Damon Albarn.

Frischmann, who doesn't feel "it's fair to try to sum up an eight-year relationship in a few soundbites," balks at discussing Albarn. But she's happy to report that she's patched things up with Matthews, who joined Elastica on a London stage earlier this year. She also admits that The Menace covers a lot of emotional territory. "Obviously, I've been through quite a lot in the last four years," she says by phone from London. "I think you can hear that on this record. There are a lot of mood swings. The new album embraces a much wider musical landscape and takes in a lot of the music that I've heard in the last few years. It also embraces technology, because I've learned to program and use a computer and use DAT players."

Those are skills Frischmann acquired in the basement, where she spent time writing and recording in 1997 after the band "basically stopped working together. . . . I was just writing for the hell of it, kind of for therapy, really. Which was good, because it reminded me why I wanted to write music in the first place. It took the pressure away a bit."

Big things were expected from Elastica after the 1995 CD, which yielded the alternative-radio hit "Connection." The album's savvy blend of art-punk riffs and sexy, neo-new-wave chemistry helped position the band as one of the leaders of the male-dominated Britpop scene: they eclipsed perennial hopefuls the London Suede, who never managed an American breakthrough, and found themselves in a league with Oasis and Blur. But tuneful, boyish Britpop was never quite Frischmann's style, as the noisy, angular guitars on The Menace attest. "The Menace is more the art-school punk aesthetic, and I think that's where we've always come from. Funnily enough, we were slightly pre-Britpop, and by the time Britpop was really breaking out in England, we were in America touring. We really weren't here cashing in on it."

Elastica also left the band with something to prove, thanks to allegations that they'd been over-zealous in appropriating particular riffs from certain well-known sources, namely Wire's "Three Girl Rhumba" (the blueprint for "Connection") and the Stranglers' "No More Heroes" (plundered for "Waking Up"). Elastica settled out of court, but that didn't stop Frischmann from drawing on some of the same influences this time around. Indeed, the Fall's notorious Mark E. Smith joins Elastica on the sly, staccato Fall homage "How He Wrote Elastica Man," and former Fall programmer Dave Bush now mans keyboards for the band. And Wire, whose "Lowdown" is sampled on the new "Human," remain one of Frischmann's primal influences. " `Human' is one of Donna's songs. We had been messing around with it, and I had `Lowdown' on in the car one day and just realized that `Human' could work quite well using that riff. I absolutely love that riff -- I've always just wanted to play it."

The Menace has its share of esoteric experiments like the aptly titled "Image Change," the ethereal "Nothing Stays," and the muted, spoken-word "My Sex." But there are upbeat moments too, including a reasonably faithful version of Trio's minimalist anthem "Da Da Da," and that seems to suggest that after a difficult few years Frischmann is now intent on enjoying herself. She was slightly disappointed when after recording "Da Da Da" she learned that song is part of an American Volkswagen TV ad. "I still think it was kind of a cool cover for us to do, partly because it's so pop, but it's pure krautrock as well. And I think you can hear the band was having a good time when we recorded it."