RECORDS

Rip It Up, Issue 129, 1 April 1988, Page 24

RECORDS

The BoDeans Outside Looking In Slash Being pushed as the band requested by the Pretenders, U2 and Bowie as support on their recent American tours is the sort of corporate push that’s trying to make early legends out of this three-piece from Wisconsin. With only one album — the instantaneous mishmash of Americana Love and Hope and Sex and Dreams — under their belts, Time magazine and other heavyweights like The Village Voice have them heavily tipped for immortality. The name BoDeans, with its crossed-connections of Bo Diddley and James Dean, conjures up the on-the-road Kerouac “authentic” romanticism that so many American critics pay homage to when they talk of roots, mama. Producer Jerry Harrison, whose band Talking Heads sprung from black influences, has also lined up to join their fan club, but despite all this watering-at-the-mouth, it’s hard to get away from the fact that the BoDeans are just a li'l of threesome weaned on a diet of Everly Brothers and developed on Aerosmith hamburgers.

Their best moments lie in their nicest songs — the classic echoes of longing in ‘Dreams’ and the irresist-

able 'Take it Tomorrow.' As singles go, ‘Only Love’ tries so hard it hurts and it’s pretty and rocky and sincere, but it lacks that quality factor. Teenage rockin’ out is handled by Forever Young’ and ‘The Wild Ones,’ strident bits of soft raunch that don’t quite have the abandon to get you on your knees. It’s possible that the BoDeans may grow into a band capable of living up to the visions of ingenuity and American authenticity that many of their influential fans currently see in them. Me? I see a band of honest intent, conservative talent with a few good tunes and a lot of very good friends. George Kay Anthrax Spreading the Disease Island Beyond Spinal Tap, Anthrax are the HM band from a Two Ronnies sketch. Resolutely non-glam, they are a prime example of the “new purity" prevailing in speed metal and hardcore. Pacifists, ecologists, skateboard/comic book/horror movie fans, anti-drink, anti-drug; Anthrax are completely generic, every band member looks the same, every song sounds the same. On the cover a long-haired youth is led screaming and convulsing from the concert arena. Is he a band member, is he a fan? (Looks like Colin Hogg to me.)

On the album, ballads, sambas and funk workouts all sound like go-

for-the-throat anthems. Best tracks are ‘Medusa,’ boasting the evilest solo and the silliest lyrics, and ‘Madhouse,’ which sounds like a whole Motley Crue album played at the same time, at the wrong speed. Slow songs are for bands that can't play fast, subtlety is for homos. Drummer Charlie Benante explains: “It's all aggression and dynamics. When we get onstage with this, we’re like a steamroller coming down the street at a 1000 miles an hour. In 50 minutes we hit the audience so hard their heads will never be the same.” Forget sex and drugs, this is rock’n’roll violence. lan Plowman Black

Wonderful Life A&M Wonderful Life is so sophisticated that it’s almost flat but I keep going back to it, playing ‘Paradise’ and Blue’ and ‘Finder’. It has all the trappings of an important album but none of the pride or self-assurance, and that’s often a symptom of greater things to come.

Colin Vearncombe, the earnest lad on the cover, would appear to be Black’s sole member; certainly his is

the only name which appears. This may be because the album is a collection of older singles, although record reps here insist that it’s a brand new album. Whatever the reason, there is a paucity of recording details, which is interesting. We’ll never know, for instance, the identity of the superb backing vocalists on Finder’, or who programmed the sparse, seductive beats throughout. Black live in a very attractive musical niche. It’s a tidy and romantic place with continental overtones; the place where OMD visited for ‘Souvenir’ and ‘She’s Leaving,’ the club which China Crisis were never old enough to enter. Inside, BEF were working as wine waiters, and in the corner was Colin, a mere lad, nursing his Guinness and brushing up on soppy novels. Wonderful Life’s cover espouses the vistas of working class Manchester but inside on the record, things could hardly be more idyllic. ‘Wonderful Life’ is the band’s newest single (accompanied by a dazzling video — don’t expect to see it), a ballad with vague reggae touches. ‘Paradise’ is a gem. ‘Everything’s Coming Up Roses' is really thin. Colin Vearncombe could turn out to

be a heir to the crown which China Crisis never quite earned. Or he could turn out to be a fizzer. There is, however, a place reserved in my record collection for Black’s second album. And who knows, he may even make one. Chad Taylor The Angels Live Line Mushroom This band has ro be experienced live to fully appreciate their own powerful songs and projecting them on stage so well. Live Line captures the spirit as best as possible, and is a good double dose of what the Doctor ordered. Studio efforts like Dark Room and The Howling are quite choice, but the live situation is where the Angels really take off. Recordings over the last five or six years were picked out by Kiwi drummer Brent Eccles and former member John Brewster to be finally brought together and mixed by Bill Price. Over 20 songs have made it onto the nicely packaged set, including No Secrets,' Don’t Waste My Time’ and with backing vocals of thousands on After the Rain' and Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face

Again.’ If you saw the Angels on their recent tour you’ll want to get this album, and vice versa. Geoff Dunn Trouble Funk Trouble Over There 4th & Broadway Go go, unlike hip hop, never seemed to progress, it seemed to be lost in the recent style wars, another spent genre. But then along comes this sucker. Beats that are clean and pure, not covered in the debris of a lot of recent hip hop, this gets straight to the point, to get into a groove and do it to death. The groove is the main thing, hence the James Brown vamps and the Parliament jams, the purest forms of the magic groove. The spirit of Clinton’s mothership haunts this record, like ‘Stroke,’ a piece of real Clinton philosophy and vintage vocal style. When they team up with P-Funk visionary Bootsy Collins, a real groove master, it gets raw and dangerous. Bootsy does three tracks which stand out from the rest, with ‘Woman of Principle’ and ‘Trouble’ being classics. But not all is funk heaven, a very wet reggae attempt almost tarnishes its perfection, also it was a wrong move in getting Kurtis Blow to get the boys to rap. Kurtis has done his best stuff with Trouble Funk, like ‘Party Time' and the rhythm of ‘Transformers,’ but here it just doesn’t work. They don’t rap very well and lines like “We can rap, funk, go go and slow it down too” sound like a TV ad rather than the boast it should be. An almost perfect record with very few flaws.

Kerry Buchanan