Briefs

Rip It Up, Issue 76, 1 November 1983, Page 20

Briefs

Killing Joke Fire Dances (E.G.) . Killing Joke are here to stay, it seems, as they erupt yet again in a riotous blaze of song and dance, a celebration of everything they stand for. Their approach on Dances is more energetic and hard-hitting than ever, making full use of rough mixing to accentuate the heavy, driving percussion and rhythmic chants set against a chaotic background of guitar and other noises. A truly enervating experience! Above all, Fire Dances attests to the band's overwhelming strength of conviction, which three previous albums have only served to reinforce. RR The Blasters Non Fiction (Slash) Now here is a buncha wolves whose night to howl has come. Beer and whiskey-soaked R&B from seven LA-based crazies whose biggest goal is to show their mentors what they're made of. Big, brash shots of rockabilly and a touch of Texas swing thrown in for good measure. Guitarist Dave Alvin is a Scotty Moore disciple, pianist Gene Taylor is a Killer man till the day he dies, and vocalist Phil Alvin probably has Carl Perkins' picture on his bedroom wall. Less posey than the Stray Cats, and a definite must at a party when some dork demands some 'rawkenrole'. DC Various Women Of Rock (K-tel)

Seems like a good commercial idea. Grab a bunch of female fronted music, smack it on the one LP and promote on TV with appropriate video teasers. Although there's some damn good stuff here along with the dross some of these women rub shoulders rather unsatisfactorily: Bow Wow Wow's Annabella and Diana Ross for instance. The other gripe concerns K-tel's squeezing in

too many tracks under the guise of value for money. Nine tracks a side means that all those extending beyond three minutes majority receive the compiler's fast fade-out, (many even copping it mid-chorus). All told then, really only an album for people who buy Reader's Digest condensed books. PT Randy Crawford . Nightline (Warner Bros) When Randy Crawford was in New Zealand last year she expressed to RIU her reservations concerning Tommy Lipuma's handling of her previous two albums. Admittedly her particular brand of soul has always included a fair dollop of schmaltz - even 77's Muscle Shoals sessions included strings but producer Lipuma seemed to be steering her perilously close to MOR. Well Lipuma's now trying Crawford out on the big dance-floor beat. 'Nightline' and Living On The Outside' employ synths, popping bass, chopping guitar standard approach in fact to considerable success. Side Two also has a bunch of worthwhile songs by Cecil and Linda Womack (and one by Crawford herself) which occasionally enable her great voice to intimate its power and passion. It still think Crawford would be far better served by a producer like Arif Mardin, but the title track does make a fine single. Jeffrey Osborne PT Stay With Me Tonight (A&M). Jeffrey Osborne's second album may be several cuts below top grade but it's an improvement on his first. While only two tracks on his earlier effort made it anything other than a throwaway, there's four or five here to justify your time. When Osborne's hard-nosed and funky ('Don't You Get So Mad', 'Stay With Me Tonight') he's convincing it's when he's telling you about "the rainbow's end" and "the greatest love affair of all" over an over familiar and schlocky melody that I, for one, switch off. Trouble is, last time round it was the schlock that gave Osborne the hits. Oh well. AD Zapp I (Warner Bros) Zapp 111 (Warner Bros) Those of you out there who are afficianados of black dance music would have already heard Zapp 11, with that killer track "Dance Floor'. Both these albums are in the same vein, with at least one really neat dance track on each. On Zapp I

we have More Bounce to the Ounce' and on Zapp 111 the wonderful 'Heartbreaker'. These aren't the sort of tracks that suit the gentle art of record reviewing, they're designed for slapping on the tape deck and bopping to. There sure are some fine rhythms on these two discs but it's a great pity that the majority of the tracks are insipid jazz-funk workouts that sound like George Benson on a bad day. But there's still those great slabs of Bootsy-inspired funk. KB