albums

Rip It Up, Issue 168, 1 July 1991, Page 24

albums

VAN HALEN For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge (Warners) At last the new Van Halen is here and the wait has been well worth it. Definitely a lot heavier and harder hitting than OUBI2 which came out over three years ago, this album shows no attempt to be commercial at all, yet it shot straight to Number One upon release in the USA. For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge captures Van Halen in the true passionate rock'n'roll spirit the fans know and love while still offering plenty of new surprises. They set to work with a power drill starting up and there's no holding 'em back as they provide the perfect rock recipe for 'Poundcake', the great new single. On 'Judgement Day' and 'Pleasure Dome' particularly the whole band are on top form as if having a sixth sense for each other's moves and this stuff rates right up there with some of the best of their nine album career so far. Edward Van Halen of course

supplies his spontaneous and innovative guitaring either in the form of intense lead breaks or more refined as in the solo '3l 6' (a very melodic piece he has used for years in the live set as intro to 'Eruption'). He also

brings piano to the VH sound for 'Right Now' with excellent results and fine arranging. Sammy Hagar is singing strongly as ever throughout offering some mighty moaning in what could be called the title track, 'ln'n'Out'. Things come to a rockin' good finish with 'Top Of The World' which has Eddie playing a lot like he does in 'Little Guitars' on Diver Down. There's no

disappointments on this album and it's a real pleasure to listen to an LP as loud and cool as F.U.C.KJ GEOFF DUNN

REDHEAD KINGPIN & THE FBI Album With No Name

(Ten Records) One of the great inevitabilities of any music, be it country, punk or rap, is that as soon as major record companies discover it they'll have a watered down pop version on the market as soon as you can blink. With rap this phenomenon hasn't been as bad as it could be. Sure, we've got a few artists like Mr Ice who are bad

beyond belief, but there has also been some thoroughly acceptable pop rap, and Redhead Kingpin has just added

another album to the list.

His first offering, A Shade of Red combined elements of rap and reggae with producer Teddy Riley's slick swingbeat pop and came up sounding great. With the Album With No Name Redhead has taken over production and writing duties himself. Which is often not a good idea but surprisingly he even outdoes the first album for simple pop appeal. Wisely, Red sticks with pretty much all uptempo, funky style tracks, usually with some sort of dumb but funny storyline to them. The beats kick along happily, Red and crew indulge in sillyass stuff like 'What Do You Hate' but also do some serious things like *We Don't Have A Plan B', an AIDS thing where the lyrics seem to reflect some genuine fear and

confusion. There's even a flashback to the first album with '3-2-1 Pump' which is one of those super-funky things that gets the kids chicken dancing frantically. Redhead's definitely come up with the goods on Album With No Name, he's made a perfectly

acceptable poppy rap album that doesn't make me want to throw up every time I hear it. A rarity, so enjoy it while you can. KIRK GEE

THE FALL Shiftwork

(Cog Sinister)

Another Fall album when most of us have only just sold the last one! It's

Mark E Smith's notorious Protestant work ethic: just look at the title and remember the taunt of "do you work hard/you don't" from 'Chicago Now'. As has been his usual policy of late he's released the record as soon as he's got enough good lyrical ideas (ie about

three times as many as anyone else) at which point the band has come up with about four decent chord progressions. So on Shiftwork you get great titles like The War Against Intelligence' and great lines like "California has - Disneyland/Blackpool has farmland" and endless minutes of limp indie rock. But don't despair—there are signs - that the Fall may be finding a way out of the musical impasse at which they've been for about the last five albums. The shudder and grind of old is all but gone, but on two or three songs here, most notably 'Sinister Waltz', almost fascistically pristine sequenced sounds are combined with palpably fallible vocals and guitars to interestingly .» . unsettling effect. So the album after next (due in about September after Mark Edward has had a good long holiday) could be of global significance. - MATTHEW JOE JACKSON Laughter and Lust (Virgin) There was a time when it made a certain sense to compare Joe Jackson with Elvis Costello. Both emerged during the British 'new wave' of the late 70s. Both wrote sharp, pithy songs full of nagging melodic hooks, to which they sang in a tone pitched as either aggressive snarl or cynical whine. And both favoured wearing tight Italian shirts.

However, during the 80s Costello developed into a master (albeit an erratic one) while Jackson lost his way. He floundered successively in reggae, 40s jive, film scoring and orchestral writing. Every now and then he'd come up with a perfect pop song but

they were few and far between. For his most recent couple of albums

Jackson returned to working with a rock line-up and the results were intermittently encouraging. Now, with Laughter and Lust he seems to have fully regained his touch. The lyrics, for so long prosaic or

preachy, have a sparkle that recalls his early days. Try, for example, It grows like a flower or grows like a

tumour/Love shows that God has a sense of humour. Jackson's subject matter can be just as quirky. In The Old Songs' he argues that 'classic rock' radio formats destroy love affairs. And the narrator in 'lt's All Too Much' can't choose between brands at the

supermarket since his girlfriend left. Musically too, the album is his strongest in years even though Jackson still won't allow a synthesised

instrument in the studio and has a fondness for rhythms sometimes , considered passe. For instance, on 'My House' he employs an el cheapo Latin beat which nonetheless works superbly, providing the throbbing tension to the angry mutterings of a commuter stuck in peak-hour traffic. On such songs as these he re-earns all the accolades he was once ’ accorded. The Costello comparisons have long since ceased being helpful but if he continues to make albums as good as Laughter & Lust Joe Jackson ? may once again merit an equivalent, stature. PETER THOMSON PERE ÜBU Worlds In Collision (Fontana) .■ Once upon a time Pere Übu redefined the old idea of rock as "body music". With a deluge of physical but unrepentantly awkward noises, both instrumental and vocal, they reminded us that the body was neither an exclusively teenage possession nor a particularly efficient * sex machine. They predated the likes . of Stump by at least ten years in evoking non-Romantic states of medical and mental instability and the sense of fear and pathos they stirred up has proven completely inimitable. They've been going for over fifteen years now so it would be absurd to expect them to keep doing the same thing but it still comes as something of a shock to discover that their latest album is an exercise in the kind of tiresome alternative AOR normally associated with REM or Sinead O'Connor. When I saw that the band who once insisted that boy-meets-tree is a more interesting song scenario than boy-meets-girl had written an 'Oh

Catherine' and a 'Goodnite Irene' I

expected some kind of gleeful upending of pop conventions but the length of the songs and the glutinous radio production by the ridiculously over-rated Gil Norton make it clear that the music is no joke. Even with the instrumental parts played so straight the effect would have been fascinating if David Thomas had used any of his magnificent repertoire of splutters and squeals but for the whole of the album he tries to sing properly; it's almost as if he was ashamed of his past. Of course the words have as little to do with sensible shoes adult pop aesthetics as ever and this probably suggests that there is some kind of subversive intent at work beyond the over-statedly parodic 'Cry Cry Cry'. The music embraces college radio blandness so comprehensively that there's no tangible tension there to experience, only an idea to think about. • ' MATTHEW HYLAND BONNIE RAITT Luck of the Draw (Capitol) . , When Bonnie Raitt was so successful at last year's Grammy Awards those of us who'd followed her career were delighted as well as somewhat surprised. While it was gratifying that a favourite artist was finally getting the recognition she deserved, it also

won for an album of markedly uneven quality. If the title track, 'Nick of Time' was Raitt's most beautiful self-penned song ever, elsewhere the album had its failures (such as the awkwardly precious torch ballad accompanied by jazz pianist Herbie Hancock). A few tracks were simply downright dull.

But no matter now because with Luck of the Draw she has delivered an album which fully merits all the glittering prizes. Its best tracks are every bit as good as the best on Nick of Time and the worst... well, there just isn't any. This is easily the most consistently strong album she's delivered in a decade.

Which is not to say the material and arrangements aren't varied. She has (understandably) stuck with the producer of Nick of Time, Don Was, and this time every one of his different approaches succeeds. The range of top-flight musicians employed is again testimony to the high esteem in which Ms. Raitt is held by her peers. And,

aside from her gorgeous vocals, she contributes her usual exemplary slide guitar and some solid keyboards.

The album also retains links with the past. 'Come To Me' shakes down with members of the loose-limbed Jump

Band that backed her on 1982's Green Light. Her renditions of the Womack's 'Good Woman, Good Man' features a duet with Texan Delbert McClinton

whose songs Bonnie was singing back in the 70s. And the roadhouse raunch of John Hiatt's 'No Business' recalls her equally wonderful cover of another of his songs on the last set. Long term fans are going to relish this album. Neophytes may like to first sample the smooth, Fleetwood Mac-styled pop of 'Not The Only One', while I defy anyone to remain unmoved by the tender heartache of 'I Can't Make You Love Me'. On this track alone over Bruce Hornsby's impeccable piano, Bonnie Raitt convincingly proves that with the right material and setting she is unquestionably one of the premier vocalists in music today.. PETER THOMSON THE BLASTERS Collection (Slash) "We got the Louisiana boogie and the Delta blues/we got country swing and rockabilly too/we got jazz, country-western and Chicago blues/it's the greatest music that you ever knew, American music".

There is no other, the Blasters are a celebration of that fact. The brothers Alvin, Phil and Dave, John Bazz, Bill Bateman joined by Gene Taylor and Lee — Little Richard-Allen, made up this rock'n'roll juggernaut. Sadly missed but forever remembered like on this collection of classics. The first seven tracks come from their second album, like the

aforementioned 'American Music', the cover of Rudy Toomb's 'l'm Shakin" and the anthemic 'Border Radio'. These early tracks come from their days of playing to LA rockabilly boys and punks, fast hard and, well, American. Dave Alvin's writing reflects the great tradition of black R&B and white

country, the melting of such genres into rock'n'roll, the exuberance of

something like 'Marie Marie' is

transcendental, even in the hands of Shakin' Stevens.

Only one song from the English live album, three songs from Non Fiction (what, no 'Fools' Paradise'?) including the work of genius that is 'Long White Cadillac'. Five songs from the dark and political 'Hard Line' and three never seen before gems. The only real

omission is 'Rock and Roll Will Stand' but I can live with that. However, you can't live without this super five collection, you really can't. . :

KERRY BUCHANAN