ANIMALS That Swim are contemplating calling time after 15 years of swimming against the tide, and who can blame these weather-beaten, neglected North Londoners.
"That's right son, I should have bigger than Elvis," sings a mordant Hank Starrs on Roy. Their urban melancholia was never going to out-sell the King, but its spiky wit and beatnik warmth, its literate charm and emotive swirls of brass should rank alongside Morrissey, Jarvis Cocker and Shane MacGowan's battered and bruised romanticism.
Babybird and Neil Hannon's Divine Comedy have reaped commercial success with similarly cinematic vignettes, and it is never too late to discover the noir magic of Faded Glamour, Pink Carnations, All Your Stars Are Out, the rousing Madame Yevonde and sozzled King Beer.
Strike early for the rarities and B-sides bonus disc...if you can find a copy anywhere. On a search of York music stores, only one stocked this retrospective fanfare: typical of the ill- fated career of Animals That Swim.
Updated: 08:58 Thursday, August 19, 2004
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