NME 22 Feb 1993

ADORABLE Vendetta (Creation/All formats) "OUT! OUT!" squealed the kids. "You told us you were messianic boy-gods come to save us from the hegemony of mediocrity. You teased us with a least four great singles, laid on performances founded on white denim, narcissim and bug-eyed mania that made our stomachs tingle - and then drenched us with tawdry non-songs and dashed promises." So, Adorable return after a chain of underachievement (a variable debut album, three drab 45s), and precious little has changed. Singer Piotr still minces around a world where the girls have eyes like milk and skin that like parachutes, and huge windswept cliffs have been specially constructed for him to stand on, while he affects an air of mild desperation and tries to convince himself he's the Ian McCulloch of his generation. And maybe he could be, were much of 'Vendetta' not crushingly forgettable. There's a burned-up charmin the title track, 'Submarine' and 'Road Movie' (iron guitars, drawled stories of mid- 20s heartbreak, the feeling that Piotr could snap at any minute) - but the remainder are cursed with generic Adorable disease. They sound worringly alike. Their choons contain all of three notes. They pong, frankly. Only 'Kangaroo Court' comes within spitting distance of greatness, as Piotr squats in a darkened corner, backed by a fuzzton orchestra, and snarls at the forces that carried him to this rather sorry impasse. "I know I'm losing my appeas," he sobs, "'Cos I was hung drawn and quartered before my trial..." Somewhere out in the provinces, he'll atone for all this. He'll wrap his frame around a rusty microphone stand, beat his guitar to a pulp and make even his most drab songs sound like inspired white heat raging. And, such is the anodyne, limp-wristed nature of most of 'Vendetta' that there'll probably be no bugger listening. (5) John Harris NME 24 Sept 1994 (p49) (NB. Vendetta was used throughout instead of Fake) Other reviews: Massive Attack Protection (8), The Wonderstuff If the Beatles had read Hunter (8), The Triffids Australian Melodrama (8)