We Americans, by and large, never quite got that whole UK "Madchester" craze that practically required that you be tripping out of your mind on "E" to truly appreciate. Hence, its just not that easy to understand what all the fuss was about from the relative safety of one's work cubicle.
Even so, those of us who were at least tuning in to MTV's "120 Minutes" religiously in the early '90s were at least aware of Happy Mondays, whose single "Step On" was their sole entry onto the U.S. singles charts.
By 1993, though, the band's well-documented drug problems and difficulty in completing a proper follow-up to their hit album Pills n Thrills and Bellyaches had bankrupted their label and left the band's members with little momentum to carry on.
Singer Shaun Ryder immediately formed Black Grape and released the chart-topping It's Great When You're Straight...Yeah, which included the UK Top 10 hits "Reverend Black Grape" and "In The Name Of The Father", but, again, he found no takers on this side of the pond.
After a less-inspired and commercially successful second album, Stupid Stupid Stupid, Ryder broke up the band mid-tour and retreated from the limelight.
In 2015, the band reformed to celebrate the 20th anniversary of It's Great When You're Straight...Yeah, but anyone who thought that was anything but a nostalgia payday, myself included, has been proven wonderfully, beautifully wrong by the arrival of Pop Voodoo, their first album in twenty years.
Produced by Youth (Killing Joke bassist/Beth Orton and The Verve producer, among others), the album practically jumps out of the speakers with the understated urgency of a band with everything to prove and nothing to lose.
As if knowing precisely what they're up against, the band's lead-off cut "Everything You Know Is Wrong" seeks to win over naysayers with a mix of booty-shaking swagger and Trump-based social commentary that never takes itself too seriously.
"Nine Lives" keeps the pedal to the metal, proving that this band has no shortage of energy, or lives.
Make no mistake, this is not a band intent on reinventing the wheel so much as seeing how far they can get with the one wheel they've got. "Whiskey, Wine & Ham" and "Money Burns" provide the necessary down-tempo chill session before the band kicks it up a notch on the celebratory "String Theory".
Have you got a disco ball? We ask only because the title cut practically requires one as the band sets the dancefloor ablaze with this tasty Giorgio Moroder-meets-Chemical Brothers joint.
"Sugar Money" delivers the chill right on schedule while "Shame" makes you wish Quentin Tarantino would get around to making a sequel to "Jackie Brown" just so this tune could open the film.
All in all, Pop Voodoo is the sort of album that could start a party in a dentist's office. Not that I necessarily wanna make an appointment to find out.
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shaun ryder returns