Here's Tom With the Weather reads the sleeve, and on Shack's fourth full-length album, the forecast calls for mostly delicate vocals, partly chiming guitars, and more-than-occasional ballads. With these twelve hushed songs, songwriter Michael Head has crafted the most relaxed album of his career. Song titles like the Lilac Time-esque "The Girl with the Long Brown Hair" and "Byrds Turn to Stone," which declares an obvious musical influence, are every bit indicative of the lilting, graceful songs they name. Head's tunes haven't felt this soft and bouncy since he fronted the the Pale Fountains, but that doesn't mean the album ever feels dull. Quite the contrary, Head's songwriting channels so many decades and genres, that all one can do is marvel at the subtle melodies, and hum along to his easy vibes. Tropical beats bounce in the air, harps reverberate romantically, and chiming, sometimes chugging guitars inspire easy moods. Spanish guitars paint texture, threatening to explode out of any given song, and finally do so on the album's most bombastic track, "Meant to Be," which throws in wonderful horns and strings to stir true passion. "Carousel" is, perhaps, the finest Nick Drake song that Drake didn't write, its stirring jazzy arrangement and yearning piano as bittersweet as can be. Here's Tom With the Weather feels like it could be the work of a super-group obsessed with the music of the Byrds and Love, made up of members of Aztec Camera, The Ocean Blue, Doves, Trembling Blue Stars, Echo and the Bunnymen, and the La's. That Head has been quietly creating music this strong in relative obscurity for so many years is remarkable. Maybe Shack just doesn't gel with the zeitgeist, and maybe that's part of what makes them a consistently compelling listen. No matter from which angle one approaches Here's Tom With the Weather, it's an excellent, timeless musical treat.
Whenever Shack are mentioned in print, invariably it’s not long before phrases like ‘criminally underrated’ and ‘lost classic’ raise their clichéd heads. Formed in 1988, the Liverpudlian four-piece have always been lavished with critical praise in inverse proportion to their meagre record sales, but perhaps the best way to summarise their career to date is ‘very unlucky’.
After an unremarkable first album, songwriter Michael Head and his band knew they had a potential hit on their hands with 1991’s Waterpistol. Falling somewhere between the classic Merseybeat of the Las and the fluid, Byrds-influenced melodies of the Stone Roses’ eponymous debut, it seemed perfectly placed to catapult Shack to stardom. But a series of disastrous events, including a studio fire that destroyed the master tapes, meant Waterpistol did not see the light of day until 1995, by which time the music scene had moved on. After a four-year split, 1999’s HMS Fable emerged boasting a host of Oasis-like big choruses, but they jumped on the Britpop bandwagon just as it was grinding to a halt and the charts remained untroubled.
Unperturbed, Head and his sidekicks have continued to release great music ever since. Time Machine is a fine retrospective of their significant talent, featuring some of the best tracks from their four albums from Waterpistol onwards as well as several rare and previously unreleased songs.
The highlights are many, but the delicious yearning harmonies of “Undecided” and “Neighbours” are probably the pick of Shack’s earlier work, while their evolution towards a more textured, orchestrated sound on 2003’s Here’s Tom With The Weather is emphatically captured on the epic “Meant To Be”, which employs scintillating mariachi brass and strings sections that would not be out of place on Love’s timeless masterpiece Forever Changes.
the hitherto obscure “Al’s Vacation” stands out as one of their best compositions, a quirkily tuneful little jaunt bringing to mind the lazy psychedelic folk of Pink Floyd’s oft-overlooked post-Barrett, pre-Dark Side Of The Moon albums.
If you like Shack, you may already own much of what’s here and decide you don’t need this collection. But if you’re an admirer of intelligent, imaginatively arranged guitar pop that’s yet to discover their charms, then Time Machine is quite simply an essential purchase.
Everyone knows that Mick Head’s Pale Fountains were cruelly ignored. Although there was nothing original about their brand of indie pop, the three albums they released in the early 80s were more than a match to more established acts like China Crisis, or The Colourfield. “Thank you” and “Jean’s Not Happening” were classic unsung singles of the era, critically approved, commercially forgotten. NME would suggest that Mick Head was “a lost genius and among the most gifted British songwriters of his generation”.
The formation of Shack in 1986 promised a fresh slate, and a chance for the brothers to achieve the success they richly deserved. “HMS Fable”, their third long player, brings a subtle brand of pastoral English pop with a gentle hint of folk, and Arthur Lee’s breezy influence all resulting in some sparkling creations. “Comedy” and “Natalie’s Party” are beautifully crafted singles, but it’s when one ventures deeper that the real rewards begin to surface. References to the years wasted by de-habilitating drug use on “The Streets Of Kenny” show the desperate search for a hit. “I’m searching through the streets again, can’t get shit, get any. Can’t find Joe or Benny, I don’t want a bag, I want a big one”, as the music drifts from gently drifting fragility into a guitar led instrumental break that’s rousing, angry and tinged with an urgency that reflects the victim’s fruitless search. The jovial “Lend’s Some Dough” cheekily pulls on the heartstrings, as the bright musical landscape shrouds lyrics that capture the shadowy world of addiction. The classic sea shanty of “The Captain’s Table” is tender, imaginative and includes breathy harmony vocals that roll with the waves. “Since I Met You” delivers the most memorable descending chorus to a story of a store hold up where the plastic gun wielding perpetrator is shot in the knee caps
One day, Mick and John Head will be rewarded for their creative ardour. Songs like these can’t possibly be overlooked. It would be one of the biggest musical travesties.
To say Michael Head has had his share of bad luck would be an understatement. Things started off well enough. The Paleys’ take on the guitar ‘n’ trumpet pop of Bacharach and Love sparked a bidding war between labels. They finally signed to Virgin for £150,000, but despite some fantastic singles, including the anthemic Jean’s Not Happening, their biggest hit, Thank You, still stalled just outside the Top 40, at No 46. The band finally split following the death of bassist Chris McCaffrey of a brain tumour in 1986. Zilch was meant to be Head’s big comeback. Now with brother John in the fold, Shack took the West Coast harmonies of the Paleys and relocated them to the English council flat. Again, the band garnered rave reviews. Again they failed to strike it lucky. After Zilch, the story descends into farce: follow-up album Waterpistol disappeared into the ether amid comical tales of burnt-down studios, lost mastertapes and the more serious spectre of heroin addiction. In the meantime, the 90s Britpop boom stole their thunder. By the time their third album proper, HMS Fable, arrived in 1999, they were already being spoken of as the forgotten men of English pop. Songs like Comedy encouraged the NME to hail Head as the country’s greatest living songwriter, but by this time they were middle-aged men who’d missed their shot at the big time. Which perhaps explains why there’s been such a spate of nostalgia for the band of late. There were a couple of Pale Fountains reunion gigs in February and, after a Japanese reissue in 2005, Red Flag records finally rereleased Zilch at the end of last year, meaning their entire back catalogue is now available to the public. If you’re new to Mick Head’s talents, I’d strongly recommend you get yourself a copy of The Magical World of the Strands, a spin-off album from 1997 that consisted of three-quarters of Shack along with Michelle Brown on bass. It’s an album full of classic, whimsical English pop; the sound of perennial Likely Lads growing up with a sense of resigned fatalism. Then, once you realise what the fuss is all about, get yourself Zilch to hear the beginnings of a magnificent band.