Why ‘Second Coming’ is The Stone Roses’ Masterpiece

There’s a moment in 2004’s Shaun of the Dead which brilliantly summarises the awkward legacy of The Stone Roses’ 1994 sophomore effort Second Coming. Nick Frost and Simon Pegg are deciding what vinyl records to throw at a group of oncoming zombies. When Frost nominates 1989’s The Stone Roses, Pegg unequivocally says no, but when Frost suggests Second Coming, Pegg squeals indignantly ‘I liked it!’ Second Coming’s reputation is immaculately lampooned in a way that makes Roses fans simultaneously laugh and wince.

The general consensus is that The Stone Roses released one truly spectacular album and some brilliant singles like ‘Fools Gold’, before capitulating in a dismal blitz of shambolic bellowing sessions, culminating in their abysmal headline slot at Reading Festival in 1996. The rockier direction the band took on Second Coming is disgracefully viewed as the main contributor to their decline. The embarrassing uncle of the Roses’ abridged back catalogue, Second Coming is often overlooked or mocked by hipster heretics who mechanically follow the party line. Wails of ‘Zeppelin pastiches’ and ‘pretentious fret-noodling’ follow the beleaguered album as it tries to go about its day. As the Roses roll away their stone and emerge into the light again, the case for Second Coming as their greatest work must be made.

Second Coming slashes on laughably lauded ‘classics’ like OK Computer and Rumours thanks to the intoxicating mixture of disparate influences expressed in the sacred unification of filthy riffs and menacing grooves. Across the twelve tracks (thirteen if you count hidden freak-out instrumental ‘The Foz’), the Roses built on the successes of their debut with more bullish and textured sounds. Every chord falls where you want, every bass line intimately weaves its way around its six-stringed partner, and every drop of the hi-hat consecrates Second Coming’s eclectic recipe.

Guitarist John Squire was the principle songwriter on an album which disturbed fans and iconic frontman Ian Brown with its blunt departure into moodier territory. In a perfect world, it would’ve been seen as a superior follow up to an impossibly sublime debut. The band explored new soundscapes by replacing the chimes of The Stone Roses with mountainous riffs, all the while maintaining Mani and Reni’s gravity-mocking calls to the dance floor. Squire’s fretwork, from the jungle-funk pyrotechnics of ‘Breaking into Heaven’ to the neo-Byrdsian barbs of ‘How Do You Sleep’, shows his versatility as a guitarist and his capacity as a songwriter to frame complex yet likeable instrumentation within accessible pop structures. The sky-scraping ecstasy of ‘Ten Storey Love Song’ comfortably segues into imperious blues leviathan ‘Daybreak’, different styles complimenting each other rather than clashing. The uplifting folk-pop of ‘Tightrope’ echoes Simon & Garfunkel and is elevated by heavenly harmonies that would humiliate the most reverent choir. Though songs flit from style to style in an ostensibly disjointed manner, the band’s inimitable identity was preserved in Brown’s vocal swagger, Squire’s multi-coloured riffs and Mani and Reni’s sumptuous grooves.

Brown and Squire’s song-writing relationship, which produced secular hymn after spiritual anthem on their debut, was eroded due to drugs and creative differences during recording, but still yielded their best song ‘Begging You’. Defined by warped guitars, apocalyptic drumming and cryptic visions, Brown and Squire used Public Enemy’s ‘Fear of a Black Planet’ as the template for the doom laden rave up that gave fans a tantalising glimpse of what direction the band could’ve taken next.

The album is not without its faults. Brown’s vocals are shocking in places, particularly on ‘Daybreak’ and ‘Driving South’, both of which are also saddled with Squire’s limp lyrics. Though it owns one of the best riffs of the nineties, ‘Driving South’ is further mutilated by a soulless drum machine which mystifyingly replaced Reni. Nevertheless, the Roses showed attractive vulnerability in these imperfections and daring experimentation their debut lacked.

Whereas The Stone Roses’s legacy benefitted from superficially optimistic political change and e-driven youth subculture around the time of its release, Second Coming was flattened by an inclement musical scene dominated by the impressive triumvirate of Pulp, Oasis and Blur. The Roses were quickly overshadowed and criminally underappreciated because Second Coming did not adhere to the retro guitar pop bands were legally obliged to produce. Despite the disintegration of the band as a cohesive unit during its composition, Second Coming is a wondrous testament to their musicianship, and is without a doubt the patron saint of second albums.