UK Edition
The Stone Roses first single in 21 years 'All for One' is a blast - review
1. The Stone Roses are back in business
The new single may have been a long (long) time coming but it doesn’t sound like it. Thirty-three years since they formed, 21 years since they last released any new music and four years since they reunited, All For One recaptures the almost insouciantly innocent blend of elements that made the band rock heroes of a rave generation.
Short and sweet (clocking in at a mere 216 seconds) this is a simple, straightforward, uplifting Madchester anthem, a loved up Ian Brown singalong homily to rave unity, shuffling on a baggy beat from Mani and Reni, with a long, sparkling, weaving guitar riff from John Squires that travels all the way from 1965 to 2016.
It starts out like a spin on The Beatles's Ticket to Ride or Rolling Stones's Last Time but the sheer persistence in the way it keeps rippling through the track transforms it into a hypnotic pulse of pure energy, sweeping us through indie and Britpop and emerging somewhere in the post modern anything goes cut and paste present. And yet, crucially, the whole thing never sounds like it’s trying too hard to please. Even the guitar solo, when it eventually comes, eschews virtuoso excess or heavy rock shredding in favour of a burst of pure rock and roll that could have graced a Chuck Berry or a White Stripes record. It’s an absolute blast, sure to put a smile on the faces of long suffering fans.
2. Ian Brown may only have three notes in his voice but they’re good ones
Live, Brown is an unreliable vocalist with terrible tuning problems, something he makes up for with sheer charisma. In the studio, his tuning is fine but his vocal range remains limited, which is why every Stone Roses melody sounds more or less the same. But softened with echoes and effects into a kind of summery blur, he carries the tune aloft with breezy charm.
The lyrics of brotherly love, quoting the famous slogan of the Alexander Dumas’s Four Musketeers (“All for one, one for all”), serve both as banner of unity for the band and for their audience, who will need little encouragement to belt them out with gusto when the Roses get the show back on the road this summer, with four nights at Manchester City’s Etihad stadium in June. There’s not much else to the lyrics, just some patent Brown nonsense about joining hands to make a wall, which doesn’t make a whole lot of sense but at least it rhymes with “all”.
“Eyes to see, chemistry, all one family” - Ian Brown is still away with the fairies. Which is exactly what his admirers love about him.
3. There’s more to come
Well, there has to be, hasn’t there? The Stone Roses are not quick workers. There was five years between their only previous two albums, and there has been 21 years between singles. The last time they put out a new single (Begging You) was the same day Oasis released Wonderwall: October 30th, 1995. That’s 7,500 days ago (according to the BBC’s Colin Paterson, who bought both together). But the reunited Roses have reportedly been in the studio for over a year now, and these first fruits are bravura enough to suggest the chemistry is working. There’s got to be more, and we’re surely not going to be made to wait another 21 years to hear it. Expect an album to drop in the next few weeks.
4. Paul Epworth is the hottest producer in popular music
The single was recorded at Epworth’s Church Studios in Crouch End, London, which has become the unlikely centre of the pop universe. The studio was built by Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics and owned for many years by singer-songwriter David Gray, but since Epworth took it over last year it has seen a steady traffic of superstars. This is where Epworth produced Adele’s 25 album.
From the biggest selling singer-songwriter in the world to Madchester’s baggiest rockers seems quite a stretch, but when you throw in other names on his diverse CV it would appear that he can lend his talents to just about anything: Florence & The Machine, Coldplay, U2, Paul McCartney, Lianna La Havas, John Legend, Bruno Mars, Plan B, FKA Twigs, Primal Scream and Cee Lo Green. Epworth’s job with The Stone Roses may have been to recapture the old magic but the fact that this record sounds utterly in the moment suggests he’s sprinkled a bit of his own contemporary pop wizardry of his own on the mix.
5. The Nineties are back with a vengeance
These past few days have seen new releases from Radiohead, Manic Street Preachers (with a Welsh football anthem), Richard Ashcroft of The Verve (with a new single and album to follow) and now The Stone Roses. Surely, it can’t be long before Oasis announce their inevitable reunion? Either that, or we all fell asleep sometime in 1995 and the last two decades have just been a horrible dream.