One of a fittingly adolescent rash of 60s garage evangelists that proliferated in the 80s, The Aardvarks strutted out of Ealing like whey-faced gorblimey barrow boys in paisley blousons. At least you’d think so on the evidence of their chippy 1990 debut single Arthur C Clarke but, as Sinker, Line And Hook amply demonstrates, there was more to them than Small Faces costermongering.
Their real strength was that they sounded uncannily authentic: like so many of their own second-string 60s heroes, they perched on the mod/freakbeat/psych cusp with boisterous ardour. If the excellent Office Number One is what the Parklife-era Blur would have sounded like had they been locked inside the Cromwellian Club with the Fleur De Lys, Cheyenne Woman is a stern flail in the manner of Harsh Reality. Drive Me Wild, jutting of chin and bristling with tambourines, sports the most rudely out-of-tune bass – it probably wouldn’t be as downright sexy without it – while the title track of their sole album, 1995’s Bargain, is a loving facsimile of new town 1968 pop. You can almost smell the Fairy Snow-laundered stripy Breton tops. Above all, Fifty Hertz Man dispenses an intoxicating, Who-ish rush, and Girl On A Bike insidiously salutes The Idle Race’s Impostors Of Life’s Magazine. [recordcollectormag.com]
Their real strength was that they sounded uncannily authentic: like so many of their own second-string 60s heroes, they perched on the mod/freakbeat/psych cusp with boisterous ardour. If the excellent Office Number One is what the Parklife-era Blur would have sounded like had they been locked inside the Cromwellian Club with the Fleur De Lys, Cheyenne Woman is a stern flail in the manner of Harsh Reality. Drive Me Wild, jutting of chin and bristling with tambourines, sports the most rudely out-of-tune bass – it probably wouldn’t be as downright sexy without it – while the title track of their sole album, 1995’s Bargain, is a loving facsimile of new town 1968 pop. You can almost smell the Fairy Snow-laundered stripy Breton tops. Above all, Fifty Hertz Man dispenses an intoxicating, Who-ish rush, and Girl On A Bike insidiously salutes The Idle Race’s Impostors Of Life’s Magazine. [recordcollectormag.com]
Another fine Garage/Mod revival band, The Aardvarks were formed in the mid-1980s in Ealing, West London. They dug into the legacy of UK 60's Mod/Psych acts as The Action, Fleur De Lys, Creation, Small Faces etc. This here is 2013. retrospection containig their sole '95 Lp "Bargain" and bunch of 45s and rare stuff.
