ALBUM REVIEW: Saint Jude’s Infirmary – “Happy Healthy Lucky Month”

First published: 2006-01-06

The Velvet Underground: the standard indie-rock reference point for music scribes everywhere. Somewhat inexplicably then, Scottish 5-piece Saint Jude’s Infirmary are rather proud that they’ve been compared to Lou Reed’s band of not-so-merry men, proclaiming this fact atop their press release.

Perhaps though, there’s more to such comparisons than simple journalistic laziness. Debut album "Happy Healthy Lucky Month" has the lo-fi fuzz-folk sound down to a T. Standout track "All My Lovely Friends" is a whisky fuelled stream-of-consciousness rant, while droning keyboards throughout provide a good approximation of that New York heroin haze.

Elsewhere on the album though, Saint Jude’s Infirmary play the sort of real-ale folk that you’re likely to stumble across on a country pub’s "Celtic Jig Night". They try to come across as elegantly wasted, but they’re too twee. Too nice. Too bloody Katie Melua. But at least that’s less of a cliché than "Velvet Underground soundalikes".