Artist: Compulsion
Album:Comforter
1994
Compulsion grew out of a Dublin neo-punk band called Thee Amazing Colossal Men. Singer Josephmary, guitarist Garrett Lee, and bassist Sid Rainey had a deal with Virgin that resulted in their winning a lawsuit against the label, after which they regrouped as Compulsion in London with Dutch drummer Jan-Willem Alkema. The group went on welfare while honing its songwriting skills, releasing three EPs and a minor hit single, "Mall Monarchy." Their sound combines punk volume and aggression with pop melodies on releases like 1994's Comforter and 1996's Future Is Medium.
Compulsion was an Irish punk band. They formed in the 1990 by Josephmary (singer) and Sid Rainey (bassist) as Thee Amazing Colossal Men. They signed a contract with Virgin Records, but after winning a lawsuit against their record label, they became "Compulsion" in 1992. Joined by guitarist Garret Lee and drummer Jan-Willem Alkema, they moved to North London and signed to One Little Indian. They released several EPs and two albums. The first, Comforter, was labelled by the NME as part of the "New Wave of New Wave", while the second, The Future is Medium, saw them sport identical black outfits and orange hairdos.
The group split in 1996, after which Lee formed Jacknife Lee and later produced Snow Patrol and U2 and broke sales records. Alkema joined China Drum and later Driven to Collision. Sid is now a writer and has created/produced an animated kid's TV series called Underground Ernie for the BBC. Josephmary now lives in Ireland.
The music industry has a strange way of working. Compulsion's Comforter came out just six months prior to Bush's Sixteen Stone; both bands were from the U.K., both albums were released by the same major label (Interscope), and both had a similar Nirvana-esque post-grunge sound honed by experienced British producers (Ian Caple and, to a lesser degree, Alan Moulder on Comforter, versus Sixteen Stone's Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley). But, whereas Sixteen Stone went multi-platinum and launched Bush into international stardom, the singles off Comforter gained little radio play in the U.S., as the album all but disappeared from the landscape. Which is really surprising, because Comforter features relatively strong songwriting and musicianship, albeit with easily traceable roots to the Pixies and Nirvana. Tracks like "Mall Monarchy," "Why Do We Care?," and "Eating" are prime examples of the power of the 4/4, bass guitar drive, loud-soft rock dynamic of the mid-'90s, while more straight-ahead tracks "Rapejacket" and "Ariadne" reach for anthemic status. Comforter features singularly named Josephmary's snarling lead vocals, which are equal parts Cobain and Mike Ness and alternate between gravely talked vocals and yells. The album's strength, however, is its songs, whose subject matter explores themes of suburban ennui in an aggressive yet detached and ironic light, and are, in the end, both powerful and melodic. The shame is that this spark of intelligence and talent, which arguably is missing from many of the more successful post-grunge acts, never really had a chance to blossom. As such, look for Comforter in a cutout bin near you; it's a very good post-grunge artifact.
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Compulsion - Delivery (1994)by reidood3,119 views
yeaaaaahhh...there they roll!! one of my absolute favourite band of the 90s!! a bow to the great compulsion!!! *happy*
fork1978 1 year ago 2
@fork1978 I am happy you are happy !!!
Juditta78 11 months ago