Slightly Miffed
Facelift Review Pieces

Ahh, it takes me back.. The first music I ever really got into was heavy metal and, as an awkward teenager headbanged quite happily for a few years, even though I didn't have much hair to speak of. It was expected of you in biker country. However, most of the music I was listening to then was either satanic, sexist or sad and most of the time probably all three. My own music tastes moved on and I remember being very amused by the sheer bloody-mindedness of speed metal, particularly when Napalm Death appeared on kiddies TV performing a 29-second track consisting of grunts and instruments played at breakneck speed. Was I supposed to be amused? I'm still not sure.

Why am I telling you all this?

Well, Slightly Miffed's "Puzzled?" was passed on to me by Mark Hewins, whose death-metal alter ego manifests itself on this album. I would have been sold on the heavy guitar chords anyway (check out "Plod" for starters) but what really wins you over is the spirit of the whole thing. The lyrics are often quite daft, never more so than on "Timeshare", where a husband and his mistress (both 'played' by blokes) discuss their relationship over dinner to the background of some manic guitar playing. This is the track Mark Hewins is credited on for 'sampling' - I assume this is the bit at the start that sounds like a sewing machine, but I could be wrong.
We Come In Pieces! The following track centres around a bona fide weather forecast, which I presume, given Slightly Miffed's obvious obsession with fish, is read by 'Hurricane' Michael. This sort of thing continues right through the album. Rather like the crazed guitar lines from the Wizards of Twiddly's Carl Bowry, you realise that there's a fair amount of pisstaking going on but still can't help admiring the musicianship or getting into the rhythms.
Buy this CD for grooving along to, Beavis and Butthead style, to check out some off-the-wall lyrics or, (like me) just for getting up to in the mornings.