Salad
****
The Salad Way
THREE BEAN, CD/DL/LP
Green shoots from reactivated Britpop-era anomaly.

Always an unexpected item on the Britpop conveyor thanks to the eccentric tang of Diminished Clothes or Drink The Elixir, Salad split up in 1998 after their second major label LP, Ice Cream. Singer Marijne van der Vlugt and guitarist Paul Kennedy cautiously regrouped as acoustic project Salad Undressed in 2017, but this album represents their full-strength comeback. Odd little vignettes just spill out of them: “In the dark you’ll hear me playing clarinet” chants van der Vlugt on In The Dark, a song that sounds like a long-lost John Parish production; Under The Wrapping Paper gives socio-political angst a pop-Fall bounce, while the post-punk My Sharona of Don’t Expect Things Not To be Scary shapes up as a noble mission statement. Funny, sharp and frequently surprising. It’s on-brand, but deliciously off-grid.

Victoria Segal