You know what’s good about Black Grape? The fact they’re just a cooler Happy Mondays. Apologies for blaspheming against Manchester’s third or fourth (give or take) favourite indie sons, but it’s kind of true. At least, as far as It’s Great When You’re Straight…Yeah is concerned, as the only album from Black Grape that anyone actually knows / cares about. But for what amounts to Shaun Ryder’s spinoff that emerged to jump on the ‘Mondays coattails after their inevitable first flame-out, a debut serving as a crash-course in Mancunian indie that mitosed from an already eclectic cell pulls off some surprisingly fun stunts. It’s the baggy, psychedelic collage of sounds and textures and spices you’d want, and still enjoyable in spite of being a little dated and obviously commandeered by creators not in the most sober of mindsets.
Beyond that though, Black Grape aren’t stretching too further. The obvious explanation is how they’re easily overshadowed by the Happy Mondays, who are still around despite being confined to an existence of a memberberry basted by the inalienable force of Britpop nostalgia. They’ve also always felt like a side-venture, which makes the arrival of something more from them a bit strange. Right now, Black Grape are rested on twin pillars that don’t exactly exude stability—the fact that their legacy is based on a single near-thirty-year-old album, and how Ryder is probably better known to a current generation as a runner-up on I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here! than a musician.
But that’s also kind of a saving grace—Black Grape, right now, don’t find themselves bound to anything. At all. If anything, they fall even further on the side, where they might be less visible overall, but also unrestricted. It doesn’t seem in Black Grape’s nature to prune back some of their zaniness for consumability’s sake. That, or they don’t know how; either feels plausible. But it can be refreshing to have that stand on its own, and not raze and salt its own creativity in the biome in the name of ‘revivalism’. Make no mistake, there is no greater movement coming out of Orange Head, or Black Grape in general; it’s too openly, obviously flawed and slapdash to get there. But that’s also where the fun is, in a singular entity spinning and flaming with a confidence that might not be justified, but is sold ridiculously well.
Anyone could tell you that, though. Shaun Ryder is by no means a shrinking violet, nor is he remotely built to be the kind of pop star that 2024 would demand. He outright states just a few lines into the first song that he can’t sing; he’s completely right about that. He’ll then go on to spew out self-propelled, could-be-improvised streams of lyrics that might have a deeper meaning, though that would require boring deeper than any human could possibly survive. But it’s also mostly endearing, only because there’s no alternative when Ryder physically forces himself front and centre whenever he’s present. It’s worth mentioning that Black Grape do have another vocalist in Paul ‘Kermit’ Leveridge, who’s generally more focused and even-keeled in simplistic but serviceable rapping, but you’re not remembering him, are you? He’s not the one shouting red-faced about being “trapped in the multiverse” on Self Harm, or trying to wind to the end of Panda by repeating “We’re getting old, like The Rolling Stones”.
Mileage will certainly vary, at the end of the day. Hell, it often will from song to song, given it’s a shtick without any consistent source of fuel behind it. Divorced from the fact that this is a man who’s basically been doing this exact thing his whole career, a fairly lengthy stretch of borderline-incomprehensible ramblings can be—big shock!—a bit hard to get along with. And you can tell that Ryder is really determined to push this all the way, leading to some of the inevitable cringeworthiness of an oversold, careering style that seems mostly concentrated on Pimp Wars. If it isn’t the shouts of “Bad driver, bad driver…muff-diver!” that hit a weird spot, “I’m an artist, bay-beh!” brayed incessantly almost certainly will. That’s added to the fact that a lot of these songs run pretty long anyway, and noticeably so in efforts to artificially stretch themselves past natural endpoints that are so easy to spot. (In The Ground is an especially egregious one for that.)
But again…that’s entirely the point, as a conscious throwback to baggy and acid-house and all these other subgenres that have died an unquestionable death in the last three decades. It’s all built to sound sweaty and roughshod, and deeply, deeply under the influence of more than a few illicit substances. Even though Ryder has been clean for years now, he can still believably sink into that environment. And it’s good to see that influence continuing to percolate, too, when being stymied and codified is about as antithetical as it gets with Black Grape. So on Orange Head, the work is deliberately loose-fitting and unstructured in its style, with ‘verse-chorus-verse’ as more of a suggestion than a diktat if it doesn’t fit whatever errant genre or sound-collection is put up at any one time. You could intuit that Ryder has been keeping some tabs on Gorillaz and their process since working with them, though the impression that Black Grape leave is one that’s soundly safe in its ‘90s bubble. The genealogy from that to songs like Milk or Panda is practically unmissable—big, percussive dance songs leaning on formulae not entirely alien to The Chemical Brothers or Alabama 3, with enough of a Happy Mondays-ish feel to cover some remaining bases.
On the whole, the ideas are rarely set in stone, but there’s enough to gravitate towards to know what Black Grape are intending. And within that, they’re capable of rocking up some surprisingly potent beats and grooves. There’s a bit of a hothouse feel to Losers and Pimp Wars as the horns blare against the multicoloured production and bass, emphasised all the more on the squonk and rattle of Quincy. All the while, the additional sundry sounds thrown in as seasoning are very in character, if only to formulate vibes that are notably disparate but work in the context of this bigger collage. There’s Latin trap on Button Eyes, and dusty guitar and harmonica on In The Ground, and the sound of panting over Milk’s wiry thrum—basically, if it’s brash, Black Grape are pretty at pulling something together. It’s also why Part Of Everything is so conversely out of place, in reaching for broader euphoria that they aren’t even remotely equipped to pull off. You’re not making epic grandeur stick in the middle of an album otherwise playing with the exact opposite, and when repeated lines of “da rock, da air, da trees” shattering to powder any kind of verisimilitude.
More to the point, it’s probably not in Black Grape’s best interests in 2024 to ‘make a point’ like that. They’ve got their corner and the freedom within it to get up to their kooky little shenanigans, and Orange Head keeps that chugging along nicely for the most part. If you’re already invested, that is; coming in blind, there might be a few too many loose threads and uncut corners to sell it on output alone. It is worth giving a shot to, though, to see one of the odder relics of an already odd period in music history still in fairly good shape. Perhaps that’s what comes from a more sporadic existence like Black Grape’s, where the decaying half-life of expectations and a flexible schedule takes some of the pressure off. And among the things that Orange Head has at its disposal—variety; engaging composition; an undeniable personality behind the microphone—the need to succumb to pressure isn’t one of them.
For fans of: Gorillaz, Alabama 3, The Chemical Brothers
‘Orange Head’ by Black Grape is released on 19th January on DGAFF Records.
Words by Luke Nuttall
