Age will mellow you, they tell you when you're young and pissed off. Railing against the stupidities and iniquities of the world? Relax: you'll grow out of it, when you have real responsibilities to worry about.
Fortunately, it's not always the case. Luke Haines began his musical career about a decade ago, sounding toxic and spiteful and wickedly funny as lead singer of The Auteurs. As the years passed, and his web of influence spread to encompass Baader-Meinhof and implausible chartbusters Black Box Recorder, he only got grumpier until now, solo, we are presented with a figure completely transfigured by hate.
It's a fascinating spectacle, and a highly entertaining one, exceptional in the current climate of placid faux-rebellion. 'Christie Malry's Own Double Entry' purports to be the soundtrack to a new British movie about a terrorist who puts poison in the water supply, but these facts are pretty irrelevant to the pleasure that can be gained from Haines' music.
The album begins terrifically. Track One, the spiked synthpop of 'Discomania', opens, "They're having sex to 'The Kids In America'. Track Two features Winchester Cathedral Choir singing 'In The Bleak Midwinter' with Haines oozing spleen over the top. Track Three is called 'How To Hate The Working Classes'. Track Four, 'The Ledger', is a piece of frosty atmospherics that stands comparison with Berlin-era Bowie.
After that, it's all a little erratic - a gratuitously ugly cover of Nick Lowe's 'I Love The Sound Of Breaking Glass', 'Essexmania''s sarcastic techno - and it's hard to tell whether Haines actually takes any pleasure in his music, or merely uses it as a satirical tool. Still, as a compulsively malign presence at pop's atrocity exhibition, you'd hesitate to allow him his indulgences.
