Each time that I listen to this album it creates a lump in my throat so fucking big it threatens to rip me apart. Heartworm (what a horrible word, really, yet can you think of a more fitting title?) just keeps going through my life, soundtracking various moments and situations and wreaking beautiful havoc. I first heard this album around fifteen years ago, and I do not think there has ever been a point when it hasn't spoken to me or hasn't filled me with a new degree of affection.
Heartworm is somewhat unique in the sense that nothing in the group's previous work pointed to it. Submarine, their debut, was bog-standard shoegaze album that did not distinguish itself by anything. You could speak about those early records by Pulp, too, yet even those had some very good material on them. You could bring up The Wrens, of course, but their two 90s showed promise. Whereas the conviction and the sheer towering quality of Heartworm came completely out of nowhere.
Quite simply, you can throw a dart into that track list and tell me this is your favourite song on the album. I will believe you. That side A by itself annihilates most albums that got critical and public acclaim in the 90s. Each song is filled with personality, intensity, catharsis. "Tripped", for instance, just doesn't stop building up and delivering. The single "We Don't Need Nobody Else" would be a timeless classic even without that middle-eight but with it, it becomes phenomenal. And how about the ending of "The Honeymoon Is Over" where each repetition just grows and grows in intensity?
Side B, though, is just as good, and there will be days when I could tell you that "Users" is their best song, to only be disproven yet again by the Dublin Symphony Orchestra creating that relentless power that is woven into the magnificent "Fiction". Or else the more lyrical, subdued magic of the strings-drenched "Personality" which could really be the best ballad-type song on the album were it not for the closing "Morning Rise" that brings the whole thing to a beautiful melodic close.
The lyrics, too, are some of the greatest I've heard on a rock album. Real drama, and pain, and anguish, and even occasional moments of disarming romance. Some of the more acerbic gems can be found in "We Don't Need Nobody Else" (I just have to quote this part: "They built portholes for Bono, so he could gaze / Out across the bay and sing about mountains / Maybe.") "The Honeymoon Is Over" is a devastating update of Chet Baker's "The Thrill Is Gone", and the blistering lyrics of "When We Were Young" need to be posted in their hair-raising entirety (because they are that good):
"When we were young nobody died
And nobody got older
The toughest kid in the street
Could always be bought over
And the first time that you loved
You had all your life to live
At least that's what you said
The first time you got drunk
You drank pernod and dry cider
Smashed a window in as the police came round the corner
You didn't have no time to run
And your dad stood up for you
As the judge said you're a fool
Babies, sex and flagons, shifting women, getting stoned
Robbing cars, bars and pubs, rubber johnnies, poems
Starsky and Hutch gave good TV
And Starsky looked like me
The first time that you stole
You stole rubber lips and tenners
Bought a radio then ran away for ever
Never felt so good, never felt so good with you
When we were young we had no fear
Of love nor sex nor warnings
Everyone was hanging out, everyone was sorted
When we were young nobody knew
Who you were or what you'd do
Nobody had a past that catches up on you
Babies, sex and flagons, shifting women, getting stoned
Robbing cars, bars and pubs, rubber johnnies, poems
Starsky and Hutch gave good TV
And Starsky looked like me
With a start he was awoken
From the middle of a dream
He's making movies in his head
That never will be seen
He's holding Oscars in his hands
And kissing beauty queens
What might have been
What might have been
When we were young"
Heartworm is so accomplished and powerful, it actually broke the group. On the one hand, the sales were not good enough, and the album sank into obscurity and became a cult classic. On the other hand, where could they go from here? (Actually, I'm also a big fan of their posthumously released third album, even if it is more of a collection of songs rather than a cohesive statement like Heartworm).
In truth, I don't even need to listen to this record anymore to know exactly, second by second, how it will go. That sad, lonesome violin playing a vaguely Irish tune at the start, and then that deceptively tired rhythm and Fearghal McKee powerful voice... I know it so well I can play it all in my head. And yet a moment comes and I cannot resist. I press play and the whole thing blows me away for a millionth time.
