Ralphy's C.D. Reviews

Review date 13-01-2000: Bush - C.D. The science of things

Bush is a quartet that started as a band in 1992 when vocalist/guitarist/teenage dream Gavin Rossdale and the bold-headed guitarist Nigel Pulsford met at a London pub and got talking about their shared musical interest. Soon after that Dave Parsons on bass and Robin Goodridge on drums joined the line-up which hasn't changed. Although at first Pulsford and Rossdale planned to work together on the songs this plan was abandoned later and all Bush-songs are written by Rossdale. Pulsford used his creative flows on some solo-work later. Although they never broke through in their home country of England in 1995 they became the biggest English rock act to break in America in over a decade with their smash hit debut album "Sixteen Stone" and the 1996 follow-up "Razorblade suitcase".

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I myself really got into them after I saw their live performance on the 1997 Pinkpop-festival. On the main stage Live had just rounded up a terrific set and my buddy and I we ran to the second stage were Bush had already started. Alas about 20,000 people in front of us, but 2 or 3 songs later we were right in front with only a handfull of people keeping us from the stage. When Bush played the crowd went so wild that it was easy for 2 determined guys to get to the front. I have never seen a band that rocked that much in songs like "Everything Zen", "Comedown" ,"Cold Contagious" and "Mouth". Since then they had only done a remix-album were techno-greats remixed their songs, which wasn't my thing, so I was looking ahead to this their 3rd studio-album "The science of things".

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The new album contains 12 songs and just over 50 minutes of music. It opens with "Warm machine", to me one of the better songs on the CD together with "Spacetravel" (on which Rossdale's love interest, Gwen Stefani from No Doubt, sings background, but I couldn't hear her) and "Prizefighter", all songs that are most like the music Bush previously released. The lyrics to the songs are for the most part a mystery to me. The first single "The chemicals between us" is a lovesong and the beautiful "The disease of the dancing cats" deals with the problem of pollution, but I couldn't figure out what the other songs are about, although Rossdale often gives some so-called 'deep' one-liner statements like "I'm scared of the government. My future lies in spacetravel." There are some techno influences on the album, as most heard on the above-mentioned first single, but nothing to scare the grunge/guitar fans away. Another remarkable song is the ballad "Letting the cables sleep", which proves to be a good successor as a ballad for "Glycerine". The other ballad "40 miles from the sun" can't live up to that standard. The closer "Mindchanger" and "Altered states" are a ordinary Bush-songs, "Dead meat" is better than that. "English fire" isn't really my cup of thea and last, but not least "Jesus online". This song is different, but I haven't yet figured out if it's in a good or a bad way. All in all it is a CD that in it's total isn't remarkably great, but doesn't disappoint either, Bush does remain an act that is better on stage than on an album and I believe that these songs could lead to a great live performances. I rate "The science of things" with a 7.5 .

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