As a tween, my middle-school’s playing field was located next to the local “Alternative School”. The oft-repeated joke amongst my ska-punk loving classmates was that rather than signifying that it was a special institution for kids expelled from the mainstream education system, the “Alternative” adjective meant that everyone who went there was “forced to listen to Bush all day long”.
Bush, the big-in-the-U.S.A. British rock band fronted by Gavin Rossdale, pretty much disappeared from the radio within the next couple of years, but at the time they were the epitome of the post-grunge “alternative” rock bands that — to my friends’ jaded 12-year-old minds at least — seemed to ape old-fashioned cock-rock more than it did Kurt Cobain. (I’ll always wonder what the old crew thought of Rossdale’s 2008 more-saccharine-than-“Glycerine” solo track “Love Remains the Same”?)
Well now Bush is back, reforming for their first shows in eight years and a new album, Everything Always Now. The first single, “Afterlife”, is currently streaming on their website (though it looks like you’ll have to make the potentially humiliating step of declaring your love for Bush on Facebook to listen to it). The sound is a little different, but mainly because this song seems to be influenced by current rock-radio mainstays like Nickelback and Lifehouse. All you “Greedy Fly” lovers out there feel free to check it out at the link below…
