Young Marble Giants – Colossal Youth
The 1980s may have been the decade of excess, but short-lived Cardiff trio Young Marble Giants got in and out before that memo landed on anyone’s desk. Originally released in 1980, Colossal Youth is a miniature masterpiece, fifteen songs rendered in 38 minutes. (This three-CD edition amends non-LP singles, the live Salad Days album, and a BBC session.) Cradled by the scratchy guitar licks and shopping-mall keyboards of Stuart Moxham, plus the clipped bass of his brother Phil, Alison Statton’s vocals make even the iciest cool-school canaries sound like Dinah Washington. Hints of reggae, bossa nova, and surf music peek through YMG’s skeletal arrangements, but their originals are so succinct they elude easy categorization. Fertile with ideas yet frugal in execution, the band’s music far outstripped its ambitions. Nirvana and Belle & Sebastian were chief among their latter day-torchbearers; their legacy and influence has proven infinitely more bountiful than their modest catalogue or take-home pay.