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  Review by bluehawaiian...
  
  The first LP by this very obscure group from Leicester- probably best known as one of the many acts to feature on the 'legendary' (amongst nerds) Nurse With Wound List (the huge alphabetical list of NWW's influences printed on the inside cover of their '79 debut _Chance Meeting on a Dissecting Table of A Sewing Machine and an Umbrella_).
  
  The first six songs here are skeletal and simplistic mid- paced pop numbers with humourous and sometimes absurd lyrics. Comparisons could be made with the Buzzcocks and especially The Soft Boys (leader Alan Jenkins' voice has shades of Robyn Hitchcock and just check out those titles- "I Met A Man Who Spoke Like An UCCA Form", "Phylis Is A Protozoon Actually", "Embalming Fluid Fucha"...) but in truth the Mice lacked the technical skill and overall err, musical muscle of the Softs.
  
  Probably the most impressive of these songs is the opener, "Minstrel Radio Yoghurt"- a naive zippy little thing featuring a cute synth melody. Another highlight is "Emile Zola" with its fuzzy guitar, clunky piano and brief feedback coda. The album's first half closes with the aforementioned "I Met A Man Who Spoke Like An UCCA Form" which boasts a longer arrangement than the other songs. Over the course of five minutes it builds from urgent, jangly minor key verses to an extended chorus- the punky, mantric repetition of the title- before bowing out with a spot of weedy, wayward psychedelic guitar noodling.
  
  The seventh track, "The Octagonal Rabbit Surplus", is something else altogether- a 28 minute collage made from tapes the group recorded both at home and in their Polytechnic music department. Spooky stretches of prepared piano and endlessly resonating gongs are interspersed with snippets of more traditional sounding instrumental tunes (I like the piano/marimba duet best) and Jandek-style primitive drum pattering, amongst other things. Cool!
  
  I presume it was this track that earned the Mice their place on the NWW List- indeed, the more avant-garde sections bring to mind those early Nurse classics like _Homotopy to Marie_ and _Spiral Insana_.
  
  As a bonus on the CD you get a further epic collage ("The Octagonal Rabbit Surplus Surplus") put together by Jenkins at a later date, but this is nowhere near as engaging as the original one.
  
  Overall a nice CD. With very funny sleevenotes. ... more
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• CD re-issue on Cordelia Records

  Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

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  Jewell case CD with a twenty page booklet full of illustrated history.
  
  Includes unlimited streaming of My Geraniums are Bulletproof via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
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