Taken for a fast ride 

The Animalhouse
Zodiac, Oxford 

Rating: * * * 

The Animalhouse are the new band of former Ride frontman Mark Gardener, which
naturally dictates that the first thing you look for at one of their gigs is a
gently swaying object which bridges the gap between an upside-down floor mop and
a pretty boy, old-school indie-rocker. Gardener, despite being turned into a
somnambulist icon by a series of mocking Mary Whitehouse Experience sketches,
was always the "talented" songwriter in Ride (the "other" one being Andy Bell,
who has since formed the dreary Hurricane No 1 and joined Oasis), and you can't
help feeling a certain disappointment to see that he's abandoned his
mother-of-all-fringes in favour of an extremist grade-one cut. Gardener's new
hair suggests something dynamic, and The Animalhouse, live, are a bit like a
grown-up Ride on speed. The leviathan waves of fuzz and bubblegum feedback are
still there, but pepped up with a (surely previously untested) juxtaposition of
Eagles harmonies and clangy Big Black guitar bits (courtesy of Gardener's
co-songwriter Sam Williams, formerly of The Mystics). The resulting melodies
could have come from a Sonic Youth who've abandoned Charles Manson and John Cage
for sunshine and the Archies. That said, The Animalhouse have yet to learn to
engage with a crowd, and find themselves stuck somewhere in the no man's land
between sulky shoe gazers and unashamed rockers. Their only interaction with the
crowd is the standard indie "cheers", and Williams's obvious crotch-rock
ambitions remain only half-fulfilled, despite a Herculean finale of Animal (like
Sonic Youth's Teenage Riot, but, y'know, for kids). If this criticism seems
harsh for a band who haven't yet gigged into double figures or put out their
first single (the excellent, imminent Animal EP), it's because the throbbing
sense of anticipation in The Zodiac is so great. It feels like 1991 again:
Radiohead and Supergrass have yet to be invented, Oxford is shoegazing central,
every chic indie kid is out on the town, and the majority of students get their
kicks from guitar, not dance, music. For the moment, The Animalhouse are getting
by on atmosphere and nostalgia alone, cautiously feeding off a compassionate
word-of-mouth crowd. We won't really see if their sunny promise is fulfilled
until they venture beyond the forgiving cushion of their home city. 

Elisabeth Mahoney Tuesday February 15, 2000 

***** Unmissable 

**** Recommended 

*** Enjoyable 

** Mediocre 

* Terrible 

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