Go Go Billy Cletus
The Billy Cletus Band

Arthur X Discs
Out tomorrow

The Billy Cletus Band are men out of time: Not in the before-their-time or after-their-time sense, no, this is more the frantic sense of "Oh my life, we've only got two days left in the studio to get these twelve songs down and all we've done so far is arse about with that mike stand and that empty Mountain Dew bottle. For ****s sake, we've got to get these down on 8-track before the producer runs out of Prozac. And murders us." For it was in these legendary circumstances that the band first recorded this seminal album. Seminal, that is, in the sense that it is completely toss.

So it is that we have this specially remastered rerelease to commemorate the one week anniversary of the album. This edition contains a far clearer mix of all the tracks, many of which have been completely or partially rerecorded at gunpoint. In some cases this is, I feel, to the detriment of the original. The original version of Filchotron for example, featured scything political critique in it's third verse: Oh, la la la / Mmmm, mmm mmmm mmhmmm mmm / Fill this bit in laterererer.... The new version replaces this with Tory filth yeah / Blair, in bed Thatcher's bitch / It's all the ****ing same which lacks the resonant layers of meaning in the original lyric.

Another standout is Tent which is now possibly the best song about trousers ever recorded, except for Iggy and the Stooges' Tight Pants. Oh, and just about any other song concerning pantloons that springs to mind. Unless there's one by Clive Dunn or Paul Nicholas or somebody, because that would be sh*t.

Blag is the only track that has remained intact, and it is generally thought that this was completed by session musicians in the next studio, which probably explains why it sounds so competent compared to the rest of the album.

This is an album that your collection can possibly be complete without.