Eat should have been massive, it still puzzles me to this day why they weren’t.

During the “Indie” boom of the late 80’s and early 90’s Ange Doolittle was one of the greatest voices and most magnetic frontmen anywhere, Pete Howard and Tim Sewell made up one of the toughest, tightest and grooviest rhythm sections of the time and I’ve been lucky enough to work with both and can attest to their colossal musical chops, and the Noble brothers, Max and Paul, who make up the rest of this mark 1 lineup of Eat conjured up a bluesy, swampy guitar sound worthy of Captain Beefheart or Dr John.

The influences on display here are many and varied. Funk, Blues, Punk, Reggae and Prog, they’re all poured into the pot, stirred up and dished up as this delicious brew made up of all that and more. From the crushing guitar drive of “Tombstone” to the psycho-rockabilly of “Electric City”, through the paranoid funk of “Fatman” and on to the warped pop of “Stories”, past the swampy stroll of “Walking Man” to “Skin” sung by what sounds like a man on the very edge of sanity and frantically quoting Gong…and that’s just side 1 !

Side 2 continues with the same swampy, psyched out groovy warped blues culminating in “Judgement Train’s” Gospel like testifying and lastly the harrowing “Mr And Mrs Smack”, a tale of addiction and hopelessness. The CD version of the album contains an extra 3 tracks. The cover of “Summer In The City” I can live without but it’s a shame they couldn’t find room for “Red Moon” and “Gyrate” on the vinyl version.

“Sell Me A God” is a superb debut and Eat really should have been massive. Their second album “Epicure” was even better (I’m still trying to track down a copy of that one). The “great” record buying public really missed a trick here.

Mr And Mrs Smack - https://youtu.be/4AexGzTNFYY