An Emotional Fish, June 1990
“Wild and beautiful and alarming”
I didn’t know anything about An Emotional Fish when I was sent to review them, but I loved them. I still don’t know much about them, apart from what’s on Wikipedia.
Sadly, the last line didn’t come true. They should have been bigger.
AN EMOTIONAL FISH
LIVERPOOL POLYTECHNIC
MELODY MAKER, June 30 1990
YOU notice first and suddenly a gesture and a sound like a match striking at full volume. A series of explosions follows from guitars and drums. From the singer comes a burnt-out voice and a fiery stare. This is a shock coming from someone who looks like Ian Gillan's angelic son who's put on the first clothes to hand. But he has a curious grace, and is compulsive viewing — screaming, sardonic, delighted, a dangerously confidential storyteller with a face of cherubic cruelty.
The rest of the band look like a heavy metal guitarist and two studious types. But what you see from their frontman is the visible image of what they play: raw, explosive and poetic.
There are non-stop beats of the more traditional kind and guitars that are doing what’s needed so exactly you hardly notice them. lt feels like blues but never exactly sounds like it. It feels as if you've never heard anything like this before. In fact you've heard lots like it, but nothing that happens just this way. And nothing on this level.
The country thrash of "Celebrate", the Irish hit, is just one part of it. There's a variety of ideas in this music but what comes out is far beyond anything like thinking.
Yet you have to think too. The words, hurled in and around the songs, are scorchingly provocative. These dark morality tales ask questions. You can think about the answers later but the music demands a response now. The audience dance or stare or laugh which is all part of the same thing. Someone loses a shoe. Around him, others are losing their minds (the mania on stage is catching), if not their hearts.
It’s wild and beautiful and alarming. Wildfire contagion is inevitable.
Back in the 21st century
Singer Gerard Whelan now makes very music under the name Jerry Fish. It’s good stuff, but very different. If you like Richard Hawley (which I do), you will probably enjoy it.
Signed to U2's Mother Records and when I put them on in Glasgow their crew were all guys from U2's Dublin mafia. The TM and I bonded over something or rather and spent ages chatting. He told me some interesting stories! They were big in Ireland, "Celebrate" was a big hit there and on US College Radio. IIRC Atlantic brought them over to do a "College Tour" outwith term time and the momentum didn't last. Same thing happened to Superstar from Glasgow.
Great band and great video - can't believe I'd never heard of them