Albums

Ste McCabe - Hate Mail

Miss Fliss 29/09/2008

Rating: 1.5/5

Ste McCabe is gay, he doesn't like certain people's attitudes, and he wants to shout about it. Fair enough. It's not the references or subject matter that grate here, though, it's the sounds. That yelping voice of his, that blast of angry guitar. Buzzsaw guitars and rallying cries, handclaps, kitsch keyboard beats, and wry lyrics, kind of in the vein of Helen Love, only minus all the glittery smiley fun.

I'm quite the fan of Cherryade Records (to which he is signed), a really great little independent label that has some fun punky pop bands on its roster, like being transported back to Radio One's Evening Session circa 1995, when bands like Vyvyan and Angelica would sing about discos, cider, broken hearts, and going out. In fact, the label have signed up the new incarnation of Angelica, featuring Holly Ross and going under the moniker of The Lovely Eggs, who are rather ace indeed, but I digress.

I can imagine John Peel would've played Ste McCabe's records on his show back in the day, and as soon as the scree of garage band electric guitar cut out to signal the song's end, he'd probably quietly and wryly and a little shyly have said: That was Ste McCabe. Well, he's an angry young man. And that's about all I feel moved to say about him too. Maybe there's a place and an audience for this sort of thing, Ladyfest comes to mind. But like listening to spoken word lady Penny Broadhurst witter on about waiting at the bus stop in the rain wishing she was eating a bag of chips with Alan Bennett, listening to Ste McCabe across an entire album is just not very interesting or inspiring.