Additional information
The Auteurs: Luke Haines (guitar, piano, vocal), Alice Readman (bass), Glenn Collins (drums). Additional personnel: James Banbury (cello), Joe Beckett, Kuljit Bhamra, Chris Wyles (percussion). All songs written by Luke Haines. NEW WAVE, the debut album from The Auteurs, remains one of the most criminally under-appreciated and underrated releases of the early '90s Brit Pop scene. Led by singer, guitarist, and song-writer Luke Haines, The Auteurs' jangly acoustic melodies and finely honed pop sensibilities set the stage for Haines's deeply poetic lyrics. Although The Auteurs never achieved the commercial success of contemporaries like Blur and Oasis, NEW WAVE remains essential listening for afficianados of early '90s British guitar rock.
Reviews
Spin (5/93, pp.83-84) - Highly Recommended - "...a pop-literate fetishist's dream, bearing 12 compact narratives....New Wave, old-fashioned virtues, and the essence of the art-school pop renaissance..." Entertainment Weekly (5/7/93, p.58) - "...An appealingly brainy mix of the Go-Betweens and T. Rex, this debut drips with the same sissyboy-gone-bad irony the Kinks' Ray Davies perfected 25 years ago..." - Rating: A- Q (1/94, p.82) - Included in Q's list of `The 50 Best Albums Of 1993' - "...The year's most surprising triumph....Luke Haynes writes marvelous songs...." Melody Maker (1/1/94, p.77) - Ranked #19 in Melody Maker's list of the `Albums Of The Year' for 1993 - "...The Auteurs defined a new strand of British pop that was cool, classy and cynically erudite..." (6/93, pp.54-55) - Good - "...there's a welcome sense of humor and necessity here, without the morbid toiling that often distinguishes the critically acclaimed..." NME (Magazine) (12/25/93, p.66) - Ranked #18 in New Musical Express' list of `The Top 50 LPs Of 1993' - "...The year's most evocative record...as revenge-minded debut albums go, it's only a few feet short of being a few feet short of genius...."