NME 22nd July 1989 Issue THE STONE ROSES: She Bangs The Drums (Silvertone) Funny how a shift in the drug culture can mean that something that a few years back would have been dismissed as retro professionalism can now be embraced as the synapse stimulant of the moment. To be sure, there are moments of heavenly, trippy transcendence on the album that justify some level of adoration, but this is less adorable and more, well, likeable. It blazes amiably, kind of like The Monkees (I kid you not) with strange faces and a hugely expanded guitar sound. 'Standing Here' on the B-side is salacious Hendrix pop, but the extra 12-inch track 'Mersey Paradise' sounds more like The La's. 'She Bangs The Drum' has the rhyme of the week, though "Kiss me where the sun don't shine/The past was yours but the future's mine". Yes boys, until next year's Summer Of Sniffing Glue, at any rate.