Album Title: How to Make Friends and Influence People
Artist: Terrorvision
Year: 1994
Running Time: 54m 55s

Track listing: 1 Alice What’s the Matter; 2 Oblivion; 3 Stop the Bus; 4 Discotheque Wreck; 5 Middleman; 6 Still the Rhythm; 7 Ten Shades of Grey; 8 Stab in the Back; 9 Pretend Best Friend; 10 Time O The Signs; 11 What the Doctor Ordered; 12 Some People Say; 13 What Makes You Tick

If “Formaldehyde” laid the blueprint for Terrorvision’s vision of how to change British rock music, “How to Make Friends and Influence People” inserted some substance to it. The debut LP was full of promise but was patchy in terms of quality. The follow-up succeeds in minimizing filler and bringing even better tracks to the table.

The first two singles, the ridiculously catchy ‘Oblivion’ and the dark, throbbing ‘Alice What’s the Matter’, show how much the band had progressed in writing and performing. When you hear tracks like the powerful ‘Discotheque Wreck’ and ‘Pretend Best Friend’, we finally know we’ve found a perfect alternative to grunge. The music is infectious, the lyrics are simple but effective, sometimes extremely clever and cute.

‘Some People Say’ and ‘Middleman’, with it’s terrific melody, slow things down a little, but still contain the raw energy and sound that is stamped on every track on the album. ‘What the Doctor Ordered’ is a total speed-rock offering that’s perfectly timed at just over two minutes, electro-rocker ‘Still the Rhythm’ is a foot-tapper, ‘Stab in the Back’ a funky number that easily eclipsed the Red Hot Chilli Peppers back in the mid-ninties.

This is a band who are just about at the top of their game.