Before we begin, lets be clear, i believe Heartworm to be one of the best albums ever released. Not the best Irish album, not a lost gem, not the best album by a band who never did anything else. Just, on it's own, a great piece of work. From Paul Page's hyper-actively inventive guitar to Fergal McKee's dark-but-beautifully-weird vocals, from the haunting backing vocals to the unlikely singable melodies and everything else, i think its a piece of genius. Granted, sometimes it's easy to throw the eyes at couplets like "Today is not a good day for me, for today i found out i was mad" and that kinda thing, but overall, to me it's a classic.
In 1995, Not many people were waiting for a Whipping Boy record, 1992's Submarine had come out to not much fanfare, and well, people were looking at Blur and Oasis and britpop and not really paying attention to four distressed misfits from Dublin. I personally didn't really discover the album until a year or two later, enticed by the single "When we were young", a feelgood, uptempo, and not very represenative single from the record.
From Opening track "Twinkle" McKee's love/hate relationship with women begins, "She's the air i breathe... She's the only one for me". I can't help thinking every song in someway is about his mother, although who knows. Sonically there's a bit of My Bloody Valentine in the guitar sounds, but as with the rest of the album, McKee's half-talking vocal style and lyrics dominate.
"When we were young" is a shiver-up-the-spine type of song, a tune which can drag you back to your teenage years, so much so that it feels he's singing about you. Sad and romantic while being affirming and joyful, its a song they should play to every young band trying to write - if you want to know about subtle melancholy, this is it.
Every song is a further dip into McKee's Issues, he (mistakenly) puts his faith in womanhood in "Tripped", admits he's been a liar all his life in the gorgeous "The Honeymoon is over" and as the song crescendos he calls "so you remember now what it takes to make a mother cry... you stupid boy".
When "We Don't Need Nobody Else" comes around, you're converted, you understand. Detailing a domestic argument where he hits out for the first time, maybe its no wonder why it didn't strike the charts alight, a song so nakedly bitter and, well, adult must have been odd for a 15 year old to get. All the while the music is subtly affecting the mood and ratcheting up the tension, and through the brilliant Blinded, the affecting Personality (and the only weaker tracks Fiction and Users) its the melodies that grab you. Come for the crazy frontman, stay for the gorgeous music.
Finally the last two songs, both on one track, like his "twin mind". A twisted love song, on "Morning Rise" McKee gently sings "When our time comes, i will know...", whether he's talking about the start of love or the end i don't know, but it sounds like he doesn't really know either. The last track is a pretty self-involved mostly spoken-word piece, and while i never really got it, its confession serves as a bookend, the final reveal of his cartoonish problems to colour all the rest of his outpourings.
Either way, The whole album works as a piece, almost like a weird play, and comes from a possibly gone time where a body of songs could work together as a cohesive album, not just a list of singles or a showcase of styles or different random ideas.
While it possibly is a lost gem, its not lost to anyone who loves it.
buy "Heartworm" from amazon
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