delicatessen - there's no confusing some people

In an unexpected case of history repeating itself I found the third, and last, Delicatessen (who formed in Leicester no less) album from 1998 by accident in the secondhand racks in Record Collectors in Broomhill, Sheffield, the same place I found hustle into bed (1996). It was only two pounds, cheaper than a pint of beer, so how could I leave it there? (I wondered at the same time if I was flicking through CDs which had been there since I had left University (getting on for over 10 years) which gave me some comfort that one part of Sheffield had not disappeared under a shiny new, ultimately soulless, tower block). Anyway the album itself is remarkably pleasant after hustle, not so filthy and violent and repugnant which admittedly, for me, gave that album its charm. Singer Neil Carlill's voice is as rough and ready as ever, the songs tend to ramble a bit, but there is a brightness and a wistfulness about the music which did not exist before, although the lyrics seem to me as oblique, Lightbulbs and Moths takes its title literally for instance. The sun is beginning to shine through the cracks in the boarded-up windows, alas it was perhaps too late for chart glory (if that was the aim), although it still outshines a lot of the trash churned out in the 90s, recall for instance (in whispers) Sleeper, Powder, theaudience, Menswear and their ilk.