ALBUM REVIEW:BADLY BADLY (1996)- SMaLLER

Aswell as me doing concert reviews on here, I may aswell also do the odd review of an album to keep myself busy inbetween shows. So with that, I’m going to start with one of my all time favourite albums ever made, Badly Badly by Liverpool band Smaller (now known as “the sums”).

Singer Digsy with long time friend and Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher

This 1996 album is a masterpiece from start to finish, labeled as “the best album you’ve never heard of” by long time friend of the band Noel Gallagher of Oasis, and I could not agree more. Smaller, started off as a four piece band in Liverpool in the 1990s, fronted by Peter “Digsy” Deary, who was the inspiration for Oasis song “Digsy’s diner” (despite the fact that he has openly stated his disliking of lasagne). The album starts with an instrumental song titled “small time” with no main vocals from Digsy. Following that however is songs “the biscuit tin” and “is” which both contain comedic and witty lyrics which make the already fantastic songs even more of a pleasure to listen to. Not to mention they have Noel Gallagher on guitar for “is”!!! Digsys vocals, pairing with the “grunge-esque” guitar for track four “whenever love lies” makes the song easily memorable, and a great song to play at any time. Following this is my personal favourite off the album (and also my top song on Spotify this year) “Wasted” which was their second single. It is a high energy, adrenaline filled song, that can never get old. The album is then slowed down with solemn number “on your own”. The verses in this are reminiscent to Real people classic, “dream on”, in its own original way. Then the chorus hits you with the repetition of, “you’re on your own again” making it a great song to listen to if your feeling sorry for yourself. To bring your mood back up though is single “God I hate this town” which is a classic upbeat rock song with comical remarks like “everything I own basically smells” a perfect showcase of Digsys humour in his songwriting which makes Smaller such a special band. Another perfect song then follows this, “Ticket to hell” which talks about ugly babies and stealing pasties, what more could you want out of a song? My favourite bit of songwriting from Digsy however is in song “Just as bad” something about this slightly slower song makes me absolutely adore listening to it, I’m not sure if it’s the catchy chorus, the great guitar solo or the witty remarks like “I’d run a bus into all of us if I could only get the bus fare, or then again, I’ll get the train if you lie on the tracks until I get there”. To finish the album are songs “Giz a life” ,which is a slower song to calm things down again after a good few songs filled to the brim with energy, and “In my liveable hole” which starts with a lot of distorted guitars then as soon as Digsy’s brother Peter kicks in with the drums the song falls into place perfectly talking about (what I can infer anyway) the bands hometown Liverpool with remarks like “are people from Brookside really that dim?”

Digsy (far left), and SMaLLER in a bathroom for some reason.

Personally, I find this album genuinely perfect. There is genuinely not one bad song on it and I stand by that. The mixing, the concert-like order of the tracklist, the guitar tone and obviously the Lyrics that -because of the humour and topics- make every song something anyone can relate to. Not to mention the band was and were fantastic live. They played in front of over 40,000 people at Liverpools stadium Anfield for the Hillsborough Justice concert, which you can find the majority of on YouTube, and it is fantastic! The band still tour under the name, “The Sums” and recently announced an acoustic show in Liverpool venue arc (which I will be without a doubt reviewing next year). I was lucky enough to meet and have a brief chat with Digsy after an acoustic show early this year and he was really down to earth, and exactly as humorous in person as he is on the records.

I know it looks like it, I swear I'm not some psychotic fan.

I’d most definitely recommend this album, it’ll be hard to find one better than it, trust me.

Tarah for now,

-Nathan

DISCLAIMER:Apart from the final photo of me and Digsy, I do not own these photo's and if I had more info on who took them they would have been rightly credited. :)