Records

Rip It Up, Issue 65, 1 December 1982, Page 18

Records

Siouxsie and the Banshees A Kiss in the Dreamhouse Poly dor From the initial punk explosion, only the Clash and the Banshees remain. The Jam have split and, while, the Clash were lost in the supermarkets of America, the Banshees broke out of their wall-to-wall cacophony to produce some of the finest singles of the last five f years. At the start of this year, it seemed the end had come for Siouxsie and the Banshees. Despite being voted best female vocalist in NME polls for. the second year running, Sioux had problems. Her voice was failing. She underwent treatment and in March the Banshees toured Japan, then released the single 'Fireworks'. A Kiss in the Dreamhouse is the Banshees' fifth album, their third with the present lineup. It is this band's cohesion of ideas and ability that enables them to produce an album of such importance. From the opening bars of the joyous 'Cascade', to the not so salubrious depths of 'Slowdive', it bristles with intensity. Inbetween, there is a new-found freedom, using previously unfamiliar instruments. On 'Greenfingers', McGeoch plays recorder, while on 'Obsession', bells, cello and violins create the desired eeriness. Throughout, Budgie's drums punctuate with perfect discrimination the guilded genius of Severin's bass lines. Nowhere do they fall into , the overbearing tedium of Juju s 'Night Shift' ‘ or 'Voodoo Dolly'. Instead, accessibility is maintained throughout. The result is something rare in this day of the hit single/filler album; a. total record, one that never falters in its promise to provide 40 minutes of aural pleasure. Only time will tell as to which album is, was, or will be the Banshees' pinnacle. A Kiss in the Dreamhouse currently rates equal with Kaleidoscope and that must make it one of this year's top recordings. Mark Phillips Yazoo Upstairs at Eric's Mute If there's been anything offensive or irritating about the new pop wonderkids it's been their selfconscious look-at-me-I'm-naive-and-cute-and-I-love-pop attitude. Love and synthesisers have become . passwords to commerciality like the trite catchy little ditties the new song forms aspire to. Depeche Mode were one of the biggest offenders and, until recently, were the vehicle for the songs of Vince Clarke, a bright new pin who has since formed Yazoo with female ' vocalist

Genevieve Moyet. She's a singer, a voice of depth and warmth, a soul singer where passion replaces posture and, together,. they've stumbled on innovation in 1982. Believe it. And believe this there isn't a bad song on their first album, Upstairs At Eric's, a reference to producer Eric Radcliffe's facilities. Their two singles 'Only You' and 'Don't Go' are representative of their approach but are by no means their best songs. Too Pieces', 'Bad Connection', 'Midnight' and 'Winter Kills' are less immediate but more lasting and 'I Before E Except After C'.is Vince Clarke experimental time where he plays with word repetitions interspersed by synthesiser lines and Moyet backchat. A vein worth tapping. The whole white-boy anaemia of the syntho-pop genre pales beside the presence of a real voice, a real feeling. Clarke's innovation is the blending of the realism and pathos of soul/R&B with the melodic buoyancy of the current synthesiser fetish. Compulsory entertainment. George Kay Led Zeppelin Coda ' Swansong As a high school student, I

remember the excitement among my friends on the release of Led Zeppelin 111. The band were held in great awe, we knew every note on / and II backwards and spent hours debating the merits of Jimmy Page versus Alvin Lee and Eric Clapton. Little did we know that even better was to come in the shape of IV, one of the seminal rock albums. Indeed, 'Stairway to Heaven' is still regarded as the alltime greatest track by many. Zeppelin's vinyl output over the years continued at an impeccably high standard (if less innovative). Until now. With Bonzo dead and the band no more, what should have been a glorious footnote to a great career turns out to be a ripoff. Barely 30 minutes of sloppy, unmelodious leftovers is hardly a fitting farewell. Even another live double would have been better [lhanrthisTiMMiMMlpM So to the 'music'. Eight tracks, consisting at one end of the scale of a live rendition of 'I Can't Quit You Baby', full of the glorious power and dynamics of yesteryear, to the embarrassing Bonzo's Montreux', a feeble drum solo enhanced by a few electronic squeaks. The other six tracks could only be described as second-rate filler, ■ understandably left off, earlier releases. It's hard to believe. this was sanctioned by Jimmy Page. Surely he can't need the money? Not the Christmas bonus I was hoping for. Chris Caddick Danse Macabre Last Request Reaction Records Danse Macabre are no more. A popular band in Auckland but less well known in southerly regions,

their debut EP Betwe^^s^ Lines evinced a healthy talent, if one a little too easily compared with the likes of Joy Division. Last Request, a posthumous, seven track, minialbum retailing for $7.99, is a more comfortable effort. Superbly produced by Trevor Reekie it features more complex, absorbing work and showcases the band warts and all at its peak. The rhythm section dominates while guitar and synthesiser add the atmosphere. Everything gels perfectly on 'Web' an instrumental of great style and finesse. 'Sanctum', with a harsh alive feel closes with some memorable instrumental work, while 'Skyline' scores with a similarly moody tone; evident more in the vocals than the cleverly ambivalent music. Terminal' with occasional barrages of eccentric guitar and solid rhythm also rates highly. Faults are few. 'Nexus' featuring (a familiar bass line shades of Young Marble Giants doesn't quite come off because of overambitious guitar and 'Ambassador' is plainly a weaker song. More serious is Nigel Russell's vocal style I which has not developed significantly and tends to be a little too forced on occasion. But this fails to detract from the songs because of the sympathetic production, placing the vocals lower in the mix. ' This is your last chance to dance with Macabre. It's a fine effort and a gracious way to bow out. David Taylor The Beat Special Beat Service Go-Feet ..(It's tough being the Beat because they've so much to live up to. Their first album was adrenalin

plus, sheer exhileration in tunes that were inspired and lyrics that focussed perfectly on the rising social aggravation in Britain. The next step, Wha'ppen, Wakeling considered to be an over-compen-sation for the hyper-danceability of I Just Can't Stop It, but it was still a hefty album where music matched moods and the moods were bleaker. Now? with critics snapping about the Beat's lethargy of iate, they've come up with Special Beat Service, an album that lies uneasily between the other two. In songs like 'She's Going', 'Spar Wid Me', 'Sugar and Stress' and 'Sorry', they've tried to guide things into the top gear of the first album but the songs aren't memorable enough to stay in the race. But times change and the Beat have matured as people, particularly Dave Wakeling whose lyrics have veered sharply from the political to the personal. And it's this personal view that yields the album's two best songs in the superb 'I Confess' and 'End of the Party'. In the middle order there's the not-half-bad sleeper 'Save It For Later', the fluid enjoyment of 'Sole Salvation', 'Ackee 123' and the irresistible throwaway 'Jeanette'. Look at it this way, the Beat, like the Clash and the Specials, have put their balls on the line in the midst of a rock scene that's full of nancy boys and bandwagon funkettes. Wakeling and co. are real people loaded with that tired old word, integrity. Special Beat Service may be a mediocre Beat album but it has far more personal investment than most of the pap currently available.

George Kay

Gurlz RTC The Gurlz' debut mini-album places them pretty well in the mainstream of the kiwi-pop style: Three parts of idealised sixties' nostalgia pure pop to one part of punk thrash; basically solid enough at heart but a bit rough around the edges. .• All six tracks clock in at under three minutes, all eminently catchy, danceable and more than a touch tongue in cheek. Good old fashioned fun in fact and very appropriate too with summer just behind the next cloud. 'Out of Bounds', as in the snazzy video, stands out as the strongest track, although 'Shark Song'. is perhaps the most interesting song but is marred by a somewhat debatable vocal effort for which, I believe, Carol Varney is responsible. 'Ze Boyz' with its wry line of FCP-ism is probably best of the rest. Surprisingly two of their highest impact live songs 'Harry was a Legend' and 'School Boyz are Best' are not included. The performances are all pretty solid with some nice keyboard touches and Kim Willougby's voice comes through well, although Shelly Pratt's harmonies, which are so impressive live, seem to have been recorded a bit haphazardly. Nothing here to change the world or how you look at it, but plenty to liven up your day. Take it to the beach! Don Mackay This Sporting Life Show Me To The Bellrope Flying Nun On this, their first record, This Sporting Life prove that they can sound as good on vinyl as they do

on stage. With a total of 10 tracks, the album runs to about 30 minutes. Their sound is intense and uncompromising, characterised by brooding bass lines, cleverly interspersed with some sharp lead guitar in the capable hands of Paul Fogarty not much melody, but plenty of beat. Unfortunately, the otherwise satisfactory production fails to do justice to Gary Charlton's vocals, with the result that they are all but drowned out by heavy instrumention on one or two songs. In the lyrics, kept short and to a minimum, one finds some nice touches of cynical humour: Gossip, rumour and fact Stab your friends in the back, - The hen party's started, Dry martinis and other drinks. There is some excellent material on Bellrope, in particular 'Safe House', 'Happy' and 'W.M.T.' ("Wasting My Time'). Though some of the material sounds rather too similar, this is an exciting debut and at a mere $6.99, who's complaining? Raymond Russell Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers Long After Dark Backstreet On his previous album Tom Petty flirted dangerously with LA rock-a-ballad, and even descended to a collaboration with Stevie Nicks. On Long After Dark he retreats back to his more familiar 'rock' style and produces a surprisingly engaging record. Petty may sell a lot of records but he still manages to stand safely to one side of the blanded out mainstream of American AOR oriented rock. He's far too much of a fundamentalist for that, adhering defiantly to the 'old-time'

guitar rock legacy of people like the Byrds and Buddy Holly: Rock songs which really are songs and really do rock, guitars used intelligently as musical instruments rather than merely as the props for crass showmanship, lyrics that relate more closely to the traditional concerns of everyday life and morality of country music, rather than the currently prevalent mixture of emotionless histrionics and soft core audio porn. And appropriately enough it is this same sort of reaffirmation of traditional values and everyday living with which the songs on Long After Dark seem chiefly concerned. "I'm just a working man, I feel each day go by" Petty testifies on 'Finding Out', which would stretch credulity somewhat coming from anybody else in his income bracket but coming from him somehow doesn't seem too outrageous. Elsewhere he proves himself one of the few people around who can deliver lines like "Real love is a man's salvation", and "Good love is hard to find" and sound as though they really mean it. Strongest tracks are, for my money, the Buddy Holly-ish T)eliver Me', We Stand a Chance' and 'Straight Into Darkness'. All around an extremely likeable, typically modest album, of intelligently conceived, craftsman-

like, old fashioned rock'n'roll. Worth twenty of anything else that's likely to come out of California this year or next. Don Mackay The Exploited Troops of Tomorrow Infa-Riot Still Out of Order Chron Gen Chronic Generation Secret Worst first. The ludicrous fantasy comic cover says it all about Troops of Tomorrow. The boize are out front kitted up for street fightin', sub-human vermin (can they really see their followers like that?) crawl out of the sewers to join them. Cartoon heroics from a cartoon band. The record itself is tragic poor retreads of ideas the Clash and Sham had six years ago mixed with a new kind of hatred. The songs go nowhere. The lyrics of songs like 'Rapist' are thankfully mostly inaudible. This isn't a silence closely resembling stupidity this is stupidity loudly exalted. Chron Gen are an improvement, but that's not saying much. 'Hounds of the Night' and 'Friends Tell Me Lies' are passable and 'LSD' says a thing or two about drugs. There are actually two covers on the album an

embarassed-sounding run-through of 'Jet Boy Jet Girl' and a rather good update of 'Living Next Door to Alice' (really!), which is one of a couple of live tracks. Infa-Riot seem to be the only ones who are anywhere near sorted out. Most of the attacks are pointed and relevant, which makes a change. They display that rare quality, a sense of humour, on tunes like "Five Minute Fashion'. Most of the songs are about struggling against oppression (as opposed to mere politics of hate) and/or the joys of being a boot boy/punk/whatever (fair enough, if you happen to be one). The only problem is I can't help this feeling I've heard it all before... Russell Brown iggy Pop Zombie Birdhouse Animal Rock criticism cliche No. 107: This album would have made a great single.' There are two songs on this record that gibber away over double beds of noise, sounding messy, self-indulgent and a little weird. Remember back when Iggy (Stooge) was considered a little weird? Before he met safe, sedate old David Bowie, before he even met that chartered accountant among guitar heroes, James Williamson (I hate James William-

son, Kill City is a testament to his flabby ineptitude). Back when moronic songs framed his moronic vocals and everything wuz neat. Well, these two songs have a little of that flavour to them. None of the rest have. Which, if you've liked his recent scrabbling up the rope ladder to normalcy, will please you no end. It's becoming very apparent that Iggy is very much influenced by his producer and sidemen. John Cale and the Asheton Bros did it real good, James Williamson fucked it up something awful and Ig was partially rescued on Raw Power by David Bowie. This one's made possible by the multi-successful American institution, Blondie, or at least Chris Stein on some bass and production and Clem Burke doing his stodgy, out of time, lame-frog-in-a-barrel-of-tar drum thang. So it's an uphill struggle for Iggy to get anything worthwhile done at all. He's also got this Rob Duprey person doing 'guitars, keyboards, backup vocals and all else', including co-writing 10 of the 12 songs, nine of which are pretty bland. The good songs are "Watching The News' and 'Street Crazies', both at the end of Side Two, that good old traditional place for 'adventurous' stuff. Someone send for John Cale.

Chris Knox