Rocktrospectiva: The Notable And Commercially Succesful "Strange Free World" Turns 35

Released on 19 February 1991 "Strange Free World" was the 2nd., studio album by British alternative rock band Kitchens of Distinction. It was the follow-up to their 1989 debut Love Is Hell. Noted producer Hugh Jones, who worked with Echo & the Bunnymen helped the band to sound more at ease in the studio. The album spawned two singles "Quick As Rainbows" & "Drive That Fast".

With the help of noted producer Hugh Jones, the Kitchens sounded and felt more comfortable with the studio and just plain bigger. The amazing opener, "Railwayed," started with a sweet, echoed guitar riff aiming for the heavens above a brisk rhythm exchange then kicks into a catchy chorus. Following that, the re-recording of their early single "Quick as Rainbows" turned out even better, combining a great lyric melody, reflecting on a person's inability to find love, delivered with Fitzgerald's trademark dry yet emotional voice -- with ripping music, building higher and higher as the song goes until Swales' guitar beautifully explodes over everything down to the final angry lyric. 

Fitzgerald's gay-themed lyrics seemed almost more urgent and in many ways more powerful as on the forceful declaration of "Gorgeous Love" in the face of homophobia and in the sad, angry reflection on the past captured only in "Polaroids."  Musically, the tunes were quite ambitious in many ways, often steering away from conventional verse-chorus-verse formulas; "Aspray" was a fine example, ending with a repeated chant of "Beach/Burned/Nausea!" while guitars crashed like waves. World ends excellently, with the band's best tune, "Drive that Fast"(a hymn to escape and self-determination that charges forward and takes no prisoners, leading into the love-drunk "Within the Daze of Passion" and the slower-paced but still big-sounding "Under the Sky, Inside the Sea," with trumpets by Kick Horns member Roddy Lorimar. 

Considered one of the best 50 shoegaze album of all time, the album was an excellent effort at the time for the band and due of this, the record was  considered one of the group's best works, as well as possibly its most popular and commercially successful, peaking at number 45 on the UK Albums Chart. The album also includes their first UK charting single "Drive That Fast," which peaked at number 93 on the UK singles chart. 

 

Strange Free World Track List:  

 

1. Railwayed

2. Quick As Rainbows

3. Hypnogogic

4. He Holds Her, He Needs Her

5. Polaroids

6. Gorgeous Love

7. Aspray

8. Drive That Fast

9. Within The Daze Of Passion

10. Under The Sky, Inside The Sea