The Stupids — Peruvian Vacation
This is part of the reissue series of the The Stupids complete back catalogue by Boss Tuneage lable, sadly most of the bands work has criminally never been released on cd and has been out of print for many years. This like the other reissues comes with a booklet full with new liner notes, pictures and a bumper crop of extra tracks- this time around a whopping 19, which goes from alterative and demo tracks of Peruvian Vacation tracks, to excusive never before released tracks and alterative versions of later tracks too.
Peruvian Vacation certainly has a hot more Hardcore trash & mettlic crossover going on than on their latter work. With also some very mettlic guitar soloing and musically chops thrown in here and there too and the sound is
generally more complex with the songs been longer than they would later become. The sound is less melodic and bubble gummy too, yet there still are traces of the tuneful punk chugging riff’s here and there that would become a big part of their sound in the records to come. The quirky/ humour bound edge is in slight evidence too, but in no way to level it would get later- this certainly has a grimmer, nasty edges to the sonic proceedings. With a nice active mix with noise elements, sudden funk/ jazz rock break downs and all manner of twists thrown. But don’t get me wrong this isn’t some like prog hardcore(!) it’s just quite chopping and changing, but at its heart it’s a true blue British hardcore/ trash cross breed.
On the whole it’s a confident, youthful yet musically accomplished debut album. That through is not quite as instant, fun or quirky as their later work really does grow on you over time.