Viv Albertine: Vermilion Border

Slits guitarist brings the bass.

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After the death of singer Ari Up and the end of a 17-year marriage, Slits guitarist Viv Albertine releases an album that doesn’t sound much like The Slits, except in spirit and verve.

It’s also something of a bassist supersession, in that every track features a bass-playing legend.

Thus the Blockheads’ Norman Watt-Roy adds deep currents to the self-explanatory I Want More, Tina Weymouth rolls through When It Was Nice, there’s rock from Glen Matlock on Hookup Girl, and Danny Thompson is suitably dignified on the elegiac Still England – which features a hilarious and obscene rap from Albertine listing England’s glories.

Each track on this album has its own atmosphere, united by Albertine’s droll, angry lyrics, and her voice, which is as English and feminine as a psychedelic dolls’ tea party.

David Quantick

David Quantick is an English novelist, comedy writer and critic, who has worked as a journalist and screenwriter. A former staff writer for the music magazine NME, his writing credits have included On the HourBlue JamTV Burp and Veep; for the latter of these he won an Emmy in 2015.