They Wanna Be Adored

The Ruling Class - Sleeping Beauty

There is a part of me that will forever be stuck in 1990, stood in the back room of 1 Arbutus Close wigging out to the latest baggy/shoegaze twelve that I'd procured from Big Brian (without whom etc etc). A halcyon era (if viewed through the ol' rose-tinted bifocals) when the only things I really cared about was music, music, music and getting strawberry-eye butted. Oh, and mooning over seemingly unobtainable girls. There was lots of mooning. And a bit of acid. That was then and this is now...

But here come The Ruling Class, sounding more "then" than anything did at the time. The perfect combination of Madchester and shoegaze - Some Friendly-era Charlatans (minus the swirling Hammond), the Roses and just a smidgen of Slowdive's sonic cathedral guitars. They've got the hair (bowl cut, fringe in the eyes) and that sense of wide-eyed, psychedelic wonder that permeated all the best music of that era. Back in 1990 I would have creamed in my pants but the first time I heard Sleeping Beauty I thought it was a low-rent pastiche. A piss-take. You might as well go and watch a Stone Roses tribute band or just buy the albums by the bands The Ruling Class are so obviously in thrall of, I thought. Every bone in my body was telling me it was derivative nonsense but I still couldn't stop playing it. And the more you listen, the more you realise the reverence the band have for the era. They have expertly recreated the sound to such a level where you wonder if (with the right producer and label on board) they could go on to supercede their influences. Or at the very least, make a half-decent album. The Ruling Class, take a bow. If I had a time machine, you'd be my new favourite band.

Buy Sleeping Beauty/Marian Shine 7" on eBay
The Ruling Class website
The Ruling Class at MySpace