The Wonder Stuff CD Review
The Wonder Stuff
Suspended By Stars
(Independiente)
Most people would just assume never hear another Wonder Stuff album, and here we are with a second within three years.
During their initial run as darlings of the British press in the late ’80s, The Wonder Stuff were as notorious musically as they were for frontman Miles Hunt’s mouth. Never shy or modest, his educated snarl was what drove the band creatively and publicly. Still energetic and arrogant (“I worked hard for my crown . . . but then I gave it away”), there’s a bigness to Suspended By Stars at once masculine and powerless. It’s hard to tell which year Hunt thinks this is. He might not be in 1988, but he’s certainly not in 2006. “We Hold Each Other Up” is a stadium Zippo anthem, and “Say It Isn’t So” sounds like Underworld’s *Trainspotting* megahit, “Born Slippy,” set to Everclear. Some of the old ability is there on “The Sun Goes Down On Manor Road” and “Someone Tell Me What To Think,” otherwise there’s more stuff than wonder.
— Steve Forstneger
