Spiders

In the US, Liverpool's Space were one-hit wonders, but lordy, what a hit. "Female of the Species," a tongue-in-cheek ode to femmes fatale with a chorus borrowed from Rudyard Kipling and a sound mutating Burt Bacharach and Happy Mondays, is one of the great UK pop-electronica hits of its era, up there with Portishead's "Sour Times" and Everything But the Girl's "Missing." None of this debut album's other singles charted in the states (though Space was moderately successful in their native UK for a number of years), but Anglophiles with a taste for vintage synthesizers, post-Madchester dance beats and camp would do well to investigate this underrated album. Not everything works: the middle of the record features a dull string of songs written and sung by guitarist Jamie Murphy, who lacks frontman Tommy Scott's cracked lyrical invention and louche Ray Davies-as-lounge lizard vocal delivery. But the ironic lovers-on-the-run ballad "Me and You Versus The World" and the playful, Latin-tinged "Dark Clouds" are more conventional pop songs every bit as good as the quirky hit, and creepy character sketches like "Neighbourhood" and "Mister Psycho" are even stranger.