Ideal Husband is one of the underground bands that are always a pleasure to listen to. It doesn’t matter if they release an original single or an EP filled with covers, they deliver a perfect product each time. And while majority of music lovers are fighting for tickets to Glastonbury or Blink 182 shows, Ideal Husband are creating beautiful, ethereal music that is hugely underappreciated. A big shout out to those reading – don’t let true artists like them quit, just because they do not have the reach of popular artists. You will not find new music on commercial events anymore. It is out there, in small grass root venues, in underground zines and on quiet Spotify accounts. Every new act should be treated like a national treasure – given a bit of TLC and they will grow into international stars.
Band’s logo
We have covered Ideal Husband on our blog in July when they released their most recent single “SBB”. You can read our glowing review for them at: https://vanadianavenue.co.uk/2022/06/20/ideal-husband-sbb-single-review/
The new offering from the band is simply titled “Covers EP” and it is exactly what it says on the tin. You will find only two songs on this digital release but the band chose wisely. Both compositions, originally recorded by hugely popular artists, became rock and roll classics in recent years. They were neatly rearranged and are sang in such a sweet fashion, they could be easily mistaken as Ideal Husband’s original material.
The first track is the “Jubilee Street” by Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds. This cover stands at the whooping 6 minutes and 40 seconds and we will probably not find many radio stations willing to play it. Shame as it is my personal favourite out of the two. Ideal Husband gave the song an incredible waltz-like quality – it is much slower, eerier than the Nick Cave’s delivery, which is a wild thing to say as Cave is predominately known for his murder ballads and chilling story-telling skills. What I never liked about the Cave’s version is that is sounds like Nick tries too hard to be Mark Lanegan. The entire album “Push The Sky Away” released in 2013 sounded like a massive homage to the “Whiskey For The Holy Ghost”, the second solo album of Lanegan that is considered a rock masterpiece. The problem is Nick Cave is just an ok singer, but nowhere near the level of genius that Lanegan was. His voice is legendary and pretending that Cave can match the skills Lanegan had, frankly silly. My opinion will probably offend a lot of rock music fans, but we have to face the music – for the last 20 years Cave limits himself to recording songs that sounds exactly the same. He became a bit of caricature of himself with his slow singing, half speaking, monologues and pathos. Lanagan was experimenting, changing as much as Madonna. He was not afraid of to take risks.
EP cover
Ideal Husband are not afraid to take risks either. “Jubilee Street” has an airy atmosphere, layered vocals and will give you goose bumps when you are listening to it. Even without fancy, elaborate production that Cave and Bad Seeds always seem to have, their version of this song is much better than the original. It sounds sincere and refreshing, and that’s what matters to me the most.
The second track is the cover of 1967 song by French artist Jacques Dutronc called “Les Cactus”. It was written about unpleasant experiences with people from music business who caused a lot of grief for Dutronc and his band early in their career. The track has been covered multiple times since then, recently by The Last Shadow Puppets who included a live version of the song on their “The Dream Synopsis EP” released in 2016. It became fan favourite as it features Alex Turner of Arctic Monkeys on lead vocals. Thankfully Ideal Husband’s version is nothing like the horribly awkward cover by The Last Shadow Puppets where Alex can’t even pronounce simple French words. It is closer to the original, but faster. It’s still very psychedelic but has this really funky and gritty punk rock kick to it. I also love how Abbi Parcell’s vocals are really fitting into this song – great version all around.
We really hope that Ideal Husband can tour next year as it would be great to finally see them play live.
If the play anywhere in Manchester, we will surely be reporting from the front lines.
You can follow Ideal Husband on socials:
https://weareidealhusband.wixsite.com/website
https://www.facebook.com/IdealHusbandBand
https://twitter.com/ideal_husband
https://www.instagram.com/ideal_husband_band
https://open.spotify.com/artist/0BfJSEM6AN7xobnDRutCN8
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCq5_p-ZqWarTKK7OacMoKxQ
Rita Dabrowicz
Indieterria 