The Menace (Japan import w/2 bonus tracks) [Import, Extra tracks, Collector's Edition]

Elastica | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (November 21, 2000)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Import, Extra tracks, Collector's Edition
• Label: WEA Japan
• ASIN: B000051TBO
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (40 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,023,280 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Mad Dog God Dam

2. Generator

3. How He Wrote Elastica Man

4. Image Change

5. Your Arse...My Place

6. Human

7. Nothing Stays the Same

8. Miami Nice

9. Love Like Ours

10. KB

11. My Sex

12. The Way I Like It

13. Da Da Da

14. Faking [Donna Matthews Home Demo]

15. You're Ok

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Elastica's second album, The Menace, comes a full five years after their million-selling, self-titled debut. A long wait, to say the least, but The Menace doesn't find Elastica making a radical change from the angular pop of their first album. The departure of guitarist Donna Matthews (who still plays on two tracks, "How He Wrote Elastica Man"--which also features the Fall's Mark E. Smith--and "Image Change") steered the band away from their punkier leanings and allowed them to fully explore the new wave path that they started down way back in 1995. Keyboards and synths now blend more completely with their spiky guitars, as do cheesy Casio tone beats and retro-futuristic samples, resulting in such hyperenergetic numbers as "Mad Dog" and "Your Arse My Place." Elastica still wear their influences on their sleeves--yep, they sure do like Wire--and they even manage to fit a legitimate cover onto the album (Trio's 1982 hit "Da Da Da"). Five years on, The Menace sees Elastica on the same ground as their debut, but rather than simply retreading it, they just dig deeper and unearth more treasures. --Robert Burrow

Product Description

Australian edition of their second album includes two bonustracks that are not on the domestic edition, 'Faking' (Donna Matthews Home Demo taken from their UK only 6 track EP) + one new track 'You're OK' which is previously unavailable. 15 tracks in all. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The "MENACE" was definitely worth the wait, April 11, 2000

By 

Kevin L. Graham (United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Menace (Audio CD)

I wore out the first Elastica CD and was so glad to hear of a forthcoming album 5 years later. I am happy to say the album is brilliant. The opening track "Mad Dog" is a bomb blast of keyboards, bass, guitar, and drums. Not to mention Justine's great voice. If you heard the EP and enjoyed it then you will love the LP. The songs are much more polished and have more Elastica and less of Mark E. Smith. The songs "Human" and "Nothing Stays the Same" have great melodies. "Generator" and "How he wrote the Elastic man" has a great mix of catchy syth hooks. To sum up this review I am very much into English indie and pop music. I own all the Blur, Idlewild,and Republica albums etc, and Elastica's "Menace" is my favorite album so far. I can only look forward to the singles now, and if I'm lucky they will tour the U.S. and stop by Arizona. Cheers!

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An exciting new-wave junkyard, August 22, 2000

By 

Joseph Kugelmass (Irvine, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Menace (Audio CD)

Elastica's The Menace does NOT follow the formula of their previous album. It is still new-wave and full of influences. Justine Frischmann still rules the record with riot grrl attitude. However, the album is grittier and looser and stupider than "Elastica". The clever lyrics of 'Never Here' or 'Stutter' have been replaced by songs like 'Your Arse My Place' and 'How He Wrote Elastica Man'. On 'How He Wrote...', they literally spell out their own name. There are ambient stretches of synth, followed by grinding guitar, and the transitions are often jerky. The Menace is a good and energized album that, oddly, sounds like the work of a band getting brasher and less mature.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars I tried to love this cd, April 27, 2004

By 

W. Johnson (The Mile High City) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Menace (Audio CD)

There was so much to look forward to on The Menace. Unfortunitely where Justine et Elastica delivered one of the best albums of the 1990's, they fall very much off the mark here. But is it a bad album? No there are certainly enough songs that are good and fun, but it is not the overall listening experience that their self titled debut was. A debut so good that invariably everyone will compare their second and only album to.

But in Defence of Elastica, this is a different album with a different goal and a nearly soap operetic change in the band. Unfortunitely even taken as its own entity, without comparison to the first Elastica CD, The Menace is an average effort at best and perhaps a harbinger to the band's destruction shortly there after.

Elastica is dead, long live Elastica.