August 14, 1999

Fall : Touch sensitive

A jubilant [I]"Heyheyheyhey!"[/I] chorus, a bassline you'd swap your soul for - there's a wildly spirally sense of free-booting lunacy here.

If anything disproves the law of averages or the law of diminishing returns or any of those bleak general prognoses for humankind that are generally used to knock us down and buckle us under, it's this record. Effectively 'Rock'n'Roll (Part 39)', it's a stroppy trample through the mean streets of home, taking in al fresco urination, "Star Wars police vehicles" and people just getting in the way.

Really, there's little to be said. You know Mark E Smith.
You
know his genius. You'll no longer know his band, remember, because they've all been sacked or left, but it sounds like the change has done him a whole universe of good. A jubilant
"Heyheyheyhey!"
chorus, a bassline you'd swap your soul for - there's a wildly spirally sense of free-booting lunacy here. Like: "They said
what
about the meek/I said they've got a bloody cheek..." If you didn't know better, you'd guess 'Touch Sensitive' was a plea for understanding - at least, a demand to be left alone. Which is, after all, kind of the same thing. Whatever, it's arguably the most exuberant thing he's done since 'Why Are People Grudgeful?' and it will (whisper it) make you very happy.

Altogether now, "And you're dying for a pee/So you go behind a tree..." Summer here, kids. Best take a raincoat, all the same.

Stevie Chick