SNEAKER PIMPS

SNEAKER PIMPS were formed when long term friends Chris Corner and Liam Howe spotted Kelli Dayton singing with her band The Lumeries, when they were going under the name Line of Flight.

At first, after hearing their top twenty single Six Underground I had Sneaker Pimps down as just a second rate triphop band. That was until I heard their debut album Becoming X (Clean Up 1996). With it's pounding dark rhythms and a strong gothness about it I was surprisingly blown away. The triphop label still stands as a lot of this does sound a bit like Tricky but also there's bits of Skeletal Family and Siouxsie and the Banshees, creating something quite impressive. The biggest treat is the cover of 'How Do' which is the song Britt Eckland sang naked in The Wicker Man whilst Edward Woodwood was resisting spanking his monkey. In the hands of the Sneaker Pimps this song is given the best of treatment with its dark electronic eeriness and Kelli Dayton's vocals sound very spectacular. Even if the rest of the album was crap, which it isn't, it would be worth owning for this track alone.

As a live band the dance label put upon them is more understandable as a lot of the dark edge of Becoming X is lost. They do strongly verge on seeming like a pop band and Kelli comes across as far too happy for the eeriness she creates on the album. This is not, however, such a bad thing. It's just not what I expected, and it made it more apparent where the Shirley Bassey influence comes into it. Overall the gothy dark triphop is mixed together with a strong dose of camp. Where their future lies is still unclear. Maybe they'll become too experimental to be successful or be too pop to be interesting. At the moment they balance the two pretty well.

JOHN MARSHALL - 16 April 1997

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