The Menace

Background

After the release of their eponymous debut record in 1995, the band started touring and in the process started partying ferociously and dabbling in drugs. The first attempt to record their second work was in France and Ireland at the end of 1996, but internal problems caused the departure of members (including vocalist/guitarist Donna Matthews and bassist Annie Holland) and the temporary dissolution of the group.

Leader Justine Frischmann, who had recently broken up with boyfriend Damon Albarn of Blur, started to work on Brian Eno-influenced mood music with flatmate Loz Hardy of Kingmaker, resulting on tracks like "Miami Nice" and "My Sex", which ended up on the album. Frischmann reconnected with Annie Holland in early 1999 and formed a new line-up of the band, including Justin Welch, keyboardist/vocalist Sharon Mew, formerly of Heave, guitarist Paul Jones (Linoleum's former member) and keyboardist Dave Bush, formerly of The Fall.

The band listened to previous recordings of the material and decided to re-do it all in the fall of 1999. Recording took only six weeks and cost around £10,000. Bush's ex-bandmate Mark E. Smith participated in the writing and recording process of two songs in the album, "How He Wrote Elastica Man" – (a play on the title of the Fall's 1980 single "How I Wrote Elastic Man"), and "KB". The album also features two early sessions with Donna Matthews ("Image Change" and "How He Wrote Elastica Man") and a Trio cover, "Da Da Da", featuring the keyboards of Damon Albarn, under the anagram alias Norman Balda.

In a 2013 interview, Frischmann would reveal her regrets over the album’s worth by claiming Elastica should’ve been a "one-album project."

The cover photo was taken by visual artist and musician Maya Arulpragasam, who also directed the video for "Mad Dog God Dam" and designed the cover for the band's last single "The Bitch Don't Work."

Reception

The album reached number 24 on the UK Album Chart.

At Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, The Menace has an average score of 69 based on 19 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews."

Track listing

All tracks written by Justine Frischmann, except where noted.

1. "Mad Dog God Dam" – 3:16
2. "Generator" – 1:50
3. "How He Wrote Elastica Man" (Frischmann, Mark E. Smith, Julia Nagle) – 2:02
4. "Image Change" (Matthews, Frischmann) – 3:27
5. "Your Arse My Place" – 2:15
6. "Human" (Matthews, Frischmann, Gilbert, Gotobed, Lewis, Newman) – 3:29
7. "Nothing Stays The Same" (Matthews, Frischmann) – 2:44
8. "Miami Nice" – 3:21
9. "Love Like Ours" (Matthews, Frischmann) – 2:22
10. "KB" (Frischmann, Smith, Nagle) – 3:12
11. "My Sex" – 4:10
12. "The Way I Like It" – 2:39
13. "Da Da Da" (Krawinkel, Remmler) – 3:52

Personnel

Songs