The re-issue of 60 Ft. Dolls' debut paints it as one of the few classic Britpop albums

I reviewed this album back in 1996 for The Big Issue, and made comparisons with The Jam, even proposing that they’d go further. Despite the editor not making the required cut for such ridiculous statements, their run of five singles from this album were punk-pop perfection, making The Big Three a real thrill – although falling way short of The Jam’s purple patch starting with “Eton Rifles” and ending with “The Bitterest Pill”.

Certainly less lethargic than Kula Shaker and less contrived than the dreadful Menswear, listening back now, their nearest kindred spirits were Supergrass - placing this album alongside their 1995 classic debut I Should Coco shows they were equally as adept with spiky pop tracks with killer choruses. The only thing missing was the transition into the pop charts.

“New Loafers” still has one of the best opening lines of an album: “Sittin’ on my sofa, waiting for my chauffeur / Along came a copper / told me it was over”. Later and even snottier, lead singer Richard Parfitt (who went on to write songs for the likes of Dido and Duffy and is now a university lecturer) spits “Didn't get warning before they kicked the door in / Stupid little stars burn up in the morning” before one of many slashing guitar solos come in to seal the deal.

Among the tales of cans of warm cider, cold chicken tikkas and Athena postcodes blue-tacked to the walls, The Big Three’s anti-glamour was the antidote to Suede’s calculated bed-sit voyeurism. The likes of “Happy Shopper” and “No 1 Pure Alcohol” are perfect three minute shots of indie sneer, but they could also rock harder than most at the time: “Terminal Crash Fear” is the sound of Motorhead with a Welsh accent.

Back to Britpop, desperate to create a ‘thing’, the media also cooked up a ‘Cool Cmryu’ scene, made up due to the fact a couple of Welsh bands were selling records at the time. This meant the 'Dolls were tagged alongside Catatonia, Gorky's Zygotic Mynci, Stereophonics and more bizarrely, Super Furry Animals, a band always in a field of their own. Yet despite this media hype, they continued to languish in the lower part of the Top 50.

60 Ft. Dolls' spark was extinguished as soon as it was lit. Two years of solid touring up to and beyond this release resulted in burn out, the usual tale of drink, drugs and general bad behaviour manifested itself in the studio, and by the time they’d struggled to piece together a second album, 1998’s underwhelming Joy Magica, they’d already split up.

This two CD expanded version gathers the various B-Sides and Peel sessions from around the time, and despite containing the indignant fury of “Dr Rat”, it shows how they gave all they had to the album, leaving not much else to spare when it came to other great tracks.

Although The Big Three now sounds pretty dated, it can still stir up dusty memories of carefree, gum chewing days. It’s a classic album from the Britpop era, something most other bands from around that time were clearly incapable of creating.