Suburban Delay ‘Fade To Grey’

Catalogue Number CSRT008
We’re into 1993 and Suburban Delay return with another 12″ vinyl release spanning the more commercial ‘club’ sound in the form of a cover of ‘Fade To Grey’ by Visage and a harder, darker more underground rave sound on the b side tracks.

There’s an uncredited male vocal on ‘Fade To Grey’ with Discogs listing uncredited backing vocals from band member Michelle Hutcheson. At this point, similar to Ultra-Sonic, Suburban Delay were a real hit on the PA scene across Scotland, parts of England and Ireland. It strikes me that the songs they’re releasing have been written with one eye very much on the live performance circuit. These bands are recording and releasing tracks that have performed well on the live circuit and they’re then giving fans and DJs throughout the country who might not have received promo copies the chance to own these tracks. Obviously that’s quite different to how many pop acts operate where they’d release a recording first and then take the songs on tour.

The early 90s rave scene operated the other way round. Bands got noticed as live PAs first, built a following and that then funded further activity which might include a physical release. In some cases that release might be fairly limited, for others it could be wider with more copies pressed up and more shops selling the vinyl.

Tower Records in Glasgow city centre stocked a large 12″ vinyl range with a dedicated dance section and often several Clubscene releases would be grouped together on a stand. Stores such as Stereo 1 and later certain branches of Our Price (particularly with CD single releases) would do the same. This is a point in time where we see the Scottish rave scene starting to move from the underground to a more general audience. Tracks like ‘Real Love’ and ‘New Emotion’ undoubtedly helped with that.

So I can well understand why Suburban Delay led with their version of ‘Fade To Grey’. It’s a hard song to cover because the original is so well known, years ahead of its time and much loved. It made sense to have a crack with a well produced dance/rave version of the song and I feel they very much do it justice here. The tracks on the b side are probably of more interest to many fans. We see ‘Energy Rush 93’ which now features a full vocal from Michelle Hutcheson. The ‘rush me rush me rush me’ vocal sounds terrific. It keeps that rave/techno edge with the audience left to decide for themselves whether the ‘rush’ in question relates to the natural euphoria one experiences at a rave or whether it might be something more synthetic. Michelle then sings a full chorus, with several lines of lyrics giving the track a whole new element.

This release also features a 7″ version of ‘Fade To Grey’ along with a track titled ‘Suburban Delay’ which begins with a repetitive almost 2 Unlimited ‘Get Ready For This’ style rave hook which continues through most of the song as other elements are added in. It sounds a bit ‘cartoon techno’ at first but is undeniably catchy and means across this release you get an idea of the full range of what Suburban Delay can do. This would have been a real live favourite and got the crowd going crazy. One of the things I loved about the original Scottish rave scene was the lack of snobbery. If a song was good, moved you and caused excitement then it had value. Across a night, you’d get a bit of everything from fun, catchy tracks, euphoric anthems and darker, more challenging material. It didn’t matter who made it or what else it might sound like, almost everything had some value to it and something to contribute. There’s a vocal from Michelle from around the 2’30 mark in this and if you listen to it all, you realise there’s much more to it than the 2 Unlimited comparisons. ‘Bits n Pieces’ by Artimesia is regularly highlighted as a much loved rave anthem – it could just as easily have been this by Suburban Delay.


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