Cornershop were an unlikely mainstream success of the Nineties. Yet their ramshackle experimental guitar-pop, incorporating the tambouras and sitars of their British-born singer Tjinder Singh’s Indian heritage, made its way to the top of the chart with 1997’s “Brimful of Asha”.
The last track they released, “Demon is a Monster”, was an anti-Brexit instrumental written for the Remainiacs podcast. This ninth album proves that Cornershop – made up of founder members Singh and Ben Ayres – are no less confrontational, nor musically ambitious nearly 30 years after they formed in Leicester.
England is a Garden is a pan-cultural melting pot of juxtapositions. “No Rock: Save in Roll” blends a Rolling Stones riff, Primal Scream fervour and gospel vocals, while “Slingshot” takes a stoner’s amble through the loose instrumentation and improvised flute found on many of the tracks here, with the resounding megaphone vocals you’d find at a protest.
Two of the album’s most jubilant highlights – “Highly Amplified” and “Everywhere That W** Army Roam” – tackle the troubling politics of England’s growing nationalism beneath the exuberant and green-pasture surfaces. The former blends joyously free flute, tamboura and introspective strings with Punjabi and English vocals telling how “hell’s deep and the world is sinking”.
The latter urges you to dance to its celebratory, brass-injected grooves, as Singh observes, “Everywhere that w** army roam/ Policemen follow them”.
An album that’s as enchanting as it is astute, from a band to treasure. Long may Cornershop keep on a path less travelled by.
