Album Title: Shaving Peaches
Artist: Terrorvision
Year: 1999
Running Time: 61m 48s

Track listing: 1 III Wishes; 2 Josephine; 3 Hypnotised; 4 Can’t Get You Out of My Mind; 5 In Your Shoes; 6 Swings and Roundabouts; 7 Day After Day; 8 Left to the Right; 9 Cantankerous; 10 The Curse of Tequila; 11 Vegas; 12 Babyface; 13 Spanner in the Works; 14 When I Die; 15 On a Mission; 16 Tequila (Mint Royale Shot)

It would have been perhaps unfair to expect Terrorvision to pull off something of the quality of “Regular Urban Survivors”. The slightly self-indulgent “Shaving Peaches” comes close, even if it does weight in a few songs too heavy.

They still hadn’t lost their skill for pulling out likable and original-sounding riffs. Check out the tranny-themed ‘Josephine’ with it’s airy riff and the funky ‘Hypnotised’ – both trundle along nicely before coming alive during their respective catchy choruses. They relive the arousing foot-tapping sound of ‘Oblivion’ in ‘Left to the Right’ and ‘Babyface’ comes up trumps as a wonderful pumped-up piece of rock kitsch. Sliding nicely into familiar territory is acoustic-rock number, and album opener, ‘III Wishes’ (‘If I had three wishes/I’d wish for five/Peace on earth, ban the bomb, get along and survive’). Hard not to like, and driven by hypnotic guitar solos from Mark.

The softer, more melodic sounds are top notch as well. ‘Day After Day’ and ‘When I Die’ are pleasant sixties-inspired tunes while ‘Cantankerous’ is an infectious number, implanted with a wonderful dance-cum-folk rhythm.

The album’s most famous track is probably ‘Tequila’, with it’s prelude track, ‘The Curse of Tequila’. Based on the true story of when lead-singer Tony got hammered on tequila and broke both his ankles, the song was remixed by techno-DJ Mint Royale and was played non-stop on Radio 1 by Zoe Ball. Needless to say it became a huge hit. The song itself is contagious with it’s catchy riff and holiday-time dance-feel.

‘Can’t Get You Out of My Mind’ is a showband rock number with a likable chrous, ‘In Your Shoes’ a decent rocker that doesn’t quite have the hook of the tracks before it, and ‘Swings and Roundabouts’ completely misses the mark with it’s unsubstantial rhythm. ‘Vegas’ just isn’t happening at all and it’s inclusion is curious, but ‘Spanner in the Works’ is slightly better with a cool guitar rhythm and the in-your-face chorus.

The latter tunes I’ve mentioned are probably what make the album a little too long in the tooth to be considered the band’s best, but there is some outstanding stuff on show and this release lines up just behind “Regular Urban Survivors”. Superb stuff.