COMPULSION - COMFORTER & THE FUTURE IS MEDIUM

Pavlis 26 April 2025

Two arguably unrecognised classics get the rerelease treatment and are well worth checking out.

Back in the mid-90s, there several bands that I knew I should investigate but, for whatever reason, never got around to it. Although I did see them live at least once, London-based Irishmen Compulsion were one such band. Thankfully, I can now put things right as One Little Independent is re-releasing the band’s two albums.

Lumped in with the New Wave of New Wave, a scene that pretty much existed in the (perhaps chemically altered) imaginations of music journos before Britpop became a thing, at least initially Compulsion had more in common with grunge than the likes of, say, SMASH or These Animal Men. That said, Compulsion shared an inventiveness with Radiohead that was sadly missing from some of their contemporaries with similar influences (Bush, anyone?).

All seething bass, pounding drums, impassioned vocals and hook-ridden guitars, debut album Comforter is the more immediate of the two albums. Rapejacket and Ariadne are classics of the post-Nirvana era whilst Yancy Dangerfield’s Delusion is simply a stone-cold classic.

With second album The Future Is Medium, the band didn’t exactly abandon their previous style. They did become less heavy and frenetic, more experimental and edgy. In places, it has more in common with the sound that Blur would adopt on their self-titled fifth album (released nine months after The Future Is Medium) than Comforter. The songwriting is even stronger, with the opening trio of All We Heard Was A Dull Thud, Question Time For The Proles and Juvenile Scene Detective all sounding fresh the best part of thirty years after they were first released.

How much of a long-term influence Compulsion actually have had is questionable. After all, you don’t see kids walking around in Comforter tees or hear bands covering Mall Monarchy or read interviews singing their praises. And that is really rather unfair because, somehow or other, there are a fair few young bands out there who do sound a lot like Compulsion. Whatever, both Comforter and The Future Is Medium are damned good albums and the rereleases are beautifully packaged.

Arguably, these two albums are under-appreciated, unrecognised classics. If you like your music alternative, punky and grungy, you can do far worse than invest in them.