Bush were criticized from most quarters of the music press for sounding too much like Nirvana on their debut album, Sixteen Stone, so in order to shed all of the comparisons, well, they hired producer Steve Albini (Nirvana, Pixies, PJ Harvey) and proceeded to record their own version of Nirvana's dark, difficult In Utero.
Actually, Razorblade Suitcase, Bush's second album, cribs heavily from two of Albini's best productions, In Utero and Pixies' Surfer Rosa -- they even hired Vaughan Oliver, the designer behind Surfer Rosa, to do the artwork.
Of course, relying so much on their idols only brings out Bush's weakness.
Granted, Albini has helped make the band sound tougher, simply by stripping away the layers of effects and concentrating on a hard, driving rhythm and stop-start dynamics.
The problem is that Gavin Rossdale has not come up with any hooks, which means that while Razorblade Suitcase is more pleasing and visceral on the surface, it offers no hooks to make it memorable, unlike the hit singles from Sixteen Stone.
| Title/Composers | Performer | Listen | Time | Size | Size | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Personal HollowayGavin Rossdale | Bush | Play | 03:23 | 7 MB | 24 MB |
| 2 | Greedy FlyGavin Rossdale | Bush | Play | 04:29 | 10 MB | 31 MB |
| 3 | SwallowedGavin Rossdale | Bush | Play | 04:51 | 11 MB | 32 MB |
| 4 | Insect KinGavin Rossdale | Bush | Play | 04:26 | 10 MB | 30 MB |
| 5 | Cold ContagiousGavin Rossdale | Bush | Play | 06:00 | 13 MB | 41 MB |
| 6 | A Tendency to Start FiresGavin Rossdale | Bush | Play | 04:04 | 9 MB | 30 MB |
| 7 | MouthGavin Rossdale | Bush | Play | 05:44 | 13 MB | 36 MB |
| 8 | Straight No ChaserGavin Rossdale | Bush | Play | 04:00 | 9 MB | 20 MB |
| 9 | HistoryGavin Rossdale | Bush | Play | 04:15 | 9 MB | 31 MB |
| 10 | SynapseGavin Rossdale | Bush | Play | 04:50 | 11 MB | 30 MB |
| 11 | CommunicatorGavin Rossdale | Bush | Play | 04:22 | 10 MB | 24 MB |
| 12 | BonedrivenGavin Rossdale | Bush | Play | 04:32 | 10 MB | 25 MB |
| 13 | Distant VoicesGavin Rossdale | Bush | Play | 06:39 | 15 MB | 38 MB |
| 61 mins | 141 MB | |||||
| 61 mins | 398 MB | |||||
| Artist | Job | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Steve Albini | Engineer, Producer |
| 2 | Bush | Performer, Primary Artist |
| 3 | Tom Elmhirst | Assistant Engineer |
| 4 | Robin Goodridge | Drums |
| 5 | Paul Hicks | Assistant Engineer |
| 6 | Glen Lutchford | Photography, Portrait Photography |
| 7 | Perry Montague-Mason | Violin |
| 8 | Timothy O'Donnell | Design Assistant |
| 9 | Vaughan Oliver | Art Direction, Design |
| 10 | Paul Palmer | Mixing |
| 11 | Dave Guy Parsons | Bass |
| 12 | Adrian Philpott | Art Direction, Design |
| 13 | Nigel Pulsford | Arranger, Guitar, String Arrangements |
| 14 | Gavin Rossdale | Composer, Guitar, String Arrangements, Vocals |
| 15 | Frank Schaefer | Cello |
| 16 | Robert Vosgien | Mastering |
| 17 | Winston | Voices |
| 18 | Gavyn Wright | String Arrangements, Violin |
| Quality | Format | Encoding | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard | MP3 | 320kps 44.1kHz | MP3 is an audio coding format which uses a form of lossy data compression. The highest bitrate of this format is 320kbps (kbit/s). MP3 Digital audio takes less amount of space (up to 90% reduction in size) and the quality is not as good as the original one. |