Up To Our Hips (1994)

Media interest has died down but undeterred the band produce their most mature collection to date, it's a shift this time, a new sincerity enter the songs, a warmth and depth in the music that was only occasionally evident in the past - soul seems to be creeping in and boy does it sound good!

Rating 4/5

Chart position: 6

Reviews

Pete (thecharlatans.info 2002)
Arriving two years after Between 10th and 11th and recorded under a cloud following Rob Collin's imprisonment for assisting an armed robbery, Up To Our Hips simply had to do the business. Rob had frantically been laying down the Hammond parts prior to being jailed, the band were under siege.

First track, Come In No 21, a possible reference to their last albums chart position, kicked in sounding big, loose and different. More natural sounding than Between 10th and 11th, the omens were good.

I Never Want An Easy Life If Me And He Were Ever To Get There is track two, try asking a record shop to pre-order that, what a mouthful!! Typically Hammond driven uplifting stuff, with prominent guitar from Mark Collins, it feels free and original, unlike most of the boring chart stuff at the time. The title is about Rob, they NEVER want an easy life!

Can't Get Out Of Bed is next up, a glorious tune, that put them back in the high echelons of the charts once more, Rob, appeared on Top of the Pops a week after being released from prison! Flowing, melody and great vocals ensure success, the album goes top 10 after this single! Back on the high road, the boys defy the critics, with enduring success.

Instrumental time, with clubby kick out, Feel Flows seeing the band sharpen their teeth in a chilled dance floor groove. One to lose yourself in.

Autograph opens to reveal growing confidence in their ability to let emotion in; sweet vocals and a laidback vibe make this a sleepy classic.

The tempo rises with Jesus Hairdo, this is guitar driven pop and it's a little cracker. Slide guitars dominate, Mark excelling himself and Tim belting out the vocals in groovy style. His line "it's hard to know reality, when you don't have a life" is very true! A must hear track.

Up To Our Hips, the title track, broods and wrenches, gutsy, rough and dark, this is a shining light on the album, it climbs to open itself up to reveal it's true beauty. Could anyone else write this type of song? I think not, it's on another level, just watch it soar, mega heavy bass and Hammond combine wonderfully with the overlaid vocals. This is intense music, not for the light hearted, an explosion fuelled by desire. Just brilliant.

Patrol saunters along next and this oozes class, heavy with Martins bass, skipping with Marks guitar work. The word cool was invented for this. Another treat!

Here comes another album hot spot with Another Rider Up In Flames scorching in. This is a smoulderer, underpinned to great effect with Robs Hammond. This smacks of cool, Tim delivering classic lines as if he was born to it.

Inside Looking Out, the final tracks sees experimentation enter the house and we see the band again toying with the music like a plaything, trying new things, learning as they go, sounding better and fresher all the time. This is music.

Stuart Maconie (Q Magazine 1994)
The curveballs have really been coming The Charlatans' way these last couple of years; the ill-health of bass player Martin Blunt, the indifference that greeted their second album and most recently the imprisonment of keyboardist Rob Collins for his part in an armed robbery. So there's a heartening example to us all in the fact that they have somehow returned with their best album to date. Produced by Steve Hillage, Up To Our Hips sees the group revelling in their disparate influences (Brian Auger Trinity, Northern Soul, progressive rock) to produce a record that ignores fashion in favour of an offbeat, uncategorisable and organic sound. Alongside sunny pop romps such as Can't Get Out Of Bed and Another Rider Up In Flames is stranger fare like the murky clavinet-driven instrumental Feel Flows.

No longer hip perhaps, but this comes highly recommended.