Long-forgotten emotional fables from Heaven and Hull given overdue rarities-packed resume
8/10
Currently, there's a TV panel-game called Pointless which awards prizes to contestants who name the unlikeliest, but correct, answers to inane questions. If 100 people were asked in a survey, 'name any city that has been at the forefront of musical advancement during the past half a century', there is a strong possibility that Hull would return such a pointless answer.
Which is a shame - apart from The Housemartins (and subsequent offshoots Beautiful South and Fatboy Slim), Everything But The Girl, Mick Ronson, Throbbing Gristle and Fila Brazilia, Kingston-Upon-Hull hasn't shouted about its musical history, nor has it been mentioned as part of a scene by the fickle music-press. All of which might explain why Nyam Nyam didn't break the mould in terms of mainstream success. Musically though, messrs Trynka, Lurie, Allison, Jessop and Simpson, did make their tiny mark in a very diverse and expansive indie-scene in the early '80s, with just one album and a clutch of singles.
Sounding all grown up, yet barely out of their teens, Nyam Nyam had potential as this superb CD reissue reveals. The album Hope Of Heaven is here in its entirety, backed up with singles, b-sides and a new song recorded in 2012. Impossible to pigeonhole, Paul Trynka's charges, to coin one of their song-titles, mined a different seam to most in their day with the singer-songwriter pitching vocally somewhere between Howard Devoto and David McComb (The Triffids), while the band used pianos, atmospherics, bass and syndrums to create reflective melancholia that complimented Trynka's dark lyrics and wavering, rustic growl.
Some of the most emotional and desolate songs to come out of the North East are assembled here - The lovely And to Hold is about a murderer, The Meeting is about gang-rape and single The Architect about an assault. With this type of subject-matter, you'd be forgiven for skipping past Nyam Nyam and picking up Oasis instead - you'd be wrong for doing so, Nyam Nyam piss all over them. Here was a band that sang about victims, about casualties, names in the local press, loners turned drop-outs, all exquisitely crafted into really understated, underrated little stories.
They had an ally in Peter Hook - he generously gave them a leg-up by mixing the 12" version of Fate/Hate, a pulsating sub-Moroder electro-pop throbber, hypnotic by turns but hardly commercial enough to cross over. Being released on Factory Benelux didn't aid its prospects either, but it's a fine effort nonetheless. Aside from the Hook connection, they also had an admirer in 4AD designer Vaughan Oliver who dressed the album and single sleeves, so things were looking up by the time the album appeared in 1984 and the lovely country-tinged The Architect EP followed a year later.
Sadly, the band didn't fulfill expectations and folded soon after. This CD also gathers up their debut single, the superb dark-wave gloom of When We Can't Make Laughter Stay, plus the newly-recorded Doubt, an exclusive insight into what Nyam Nyam might have sounded like these days.
As a test of your stiff upper lip, try seeking out And To Hold (either version) and I defy you not to appreciate the pleading lyric, "the only time you talk to me/ is when you talk in your sleep/ leave the children asleep". Better still, pick up this album and immerse yourself in an urban sorrow that mercifully doesn't smack of self-indulgence.
To order this album, head to Amazon here or LTM here
8/10
Which is a shame - apart from The Housemartins (and subsequent offshoots Beautiful South and Fatboy Slim), Everything But The Girl, Mick Ronson, Throbbing Gristle and Fila Brazilia, Kingston-Upon-Hull hasn't shouted about its musical history, nor has it been mentioned as part of a scene by the fickle music-press. All of which might explain why Nyam Nyam didn't break the mould in terms of mainstream success. Musically though, messrs Trynka, Lurie, Allison, Jessop and Simpson, did make their tiny mark in a very diverse and expansive indie-scene in the early '80s, with just one album and a clutch of singles.
Sounding all grown up, yet barely out of their teens, Nyam Nyam had potential as this superb CD reissue reveals. The album Hope Of Heaven is here in its entirety, backed up with singles, b-sides and a new song recorded in 2012. Impossible to pigeonhole, Paul Trynka's charges, to coin one of their song-titles, mined a different seam to most in their day with the singer-songwriter pitching vocally somewhere between Howard Devoto and David McComb (The Triffids), while the band used pianos, atmospherics, bass and syndrums to create reflective melancholia that complimented Trynka's dark lyrics and wavering, rustic growl.
Some of the most emotional and desolate songs to come out of the North East are assembled here - The lovely And to Hold is about a murderer, The Meeting is about gang-rape and single The Architect about an assault. With this type of subject-matter, you'd be forgiven for skipping past Nyam Nyam and picking up Oasis instead - you'd be wrong for doing so, Nyam Nyam piss all over them. Here was a band that sang about victims, about casualties, names in the local press, loners turned drop-outs, all exquisitely crafted into really understated, underrated little stories.
They had an ally in Peter Hook - he generously gave them a leg-up by mixing the 12" version of Fate/Hate, a pulsating sub-Moroder electro-pop throbber, hypnotic by turns but hardly commercial enough to cross over. Being released on Factory Benelux didn't aid its prospects either, but it's a fine effort nonetheless. Aside from the Hook connection, they also had an admirer in 4AD designer Vaughan Oliver who dressed the album and single sleeves, so things were looking up by the time the album appeared in 1984 and the lovely country-tinged The Architect EP followed a year later.
Sadly, the band didn't fulfill expectations and folded soon after. This CD also gathers up their debut single, the superb dark-wave gloom of When We Can't Make Laughter Stay, plus the newly-recorded Doubt, an exclusive insight into what Nyam Nyam might have sounded like these days.
As a test of your stiff upper lip, try seeking out And To Hold (either version) and I defy you not to appreciate the pleading lyric, "the only time you talk to me/ is when you talk in your sleep/ leave the children asleep". Better still, pick up this album and immerse yourself in an urban sorrow that mercifully doesn't smack of self-indulgence.
To order this album, head to Amazon here or LTM here