The Broken Years

 

Hipsway - Hipsway [MERH 85 UK 1986 24-Bit FLAC]

In the annals of time, there were many Scottish bands who flipped from the creative to the dull commercial (Simple Minds, Aztec Camera etc), some who ploughed on doing their own thing (The Blue Nile & The Silencers), there were also crass, sickly popstars (Wet,Wet, Wet or is that Drip, Drip, Drip) and then there were those more commercial sounding bands who deserved huge success however it eluded them, so consequently they maintained some credibility. Hipsway were one of those bands (Love & Money were another), formed by former Altered Images guitarist  Johnny McElhone  and lanky vocalist Grahame Skinner, they released three great singles, The Broken Years, Ask The Lord and The Honeythief . Only the latter (with that fabulous riff) was to chart in the UK (it got to number 17), with sales pushed along by a very generous double twelve inch pack from memory.

This is their debut album and only worthy long-player, as McElhone was to jump ship to form Texas with Sharleen Spiteri shortly after its release. The follow-up, Scratch The Surface, failed to even scratch the surface as it hung around the vague perimeters of late eighties weary, unaspiring pop-rock.

This is all the Hipsway we need.

A1 The Honeythief
A2 Ask The Lord
A3 Bad Thing Longing
A4 Upon A Thread
A5 Long White Car
B1 The Broken Years
B2 Tinder
B3 Forbidden
B4 Set This Day Apart