NZ

Rip It Up, Issue 171, 1 October 1991, Page 33

NZ

SKEPTICS Sensible EP (Flying Nun) In a gesture of heroic defiance in the face of the supposed "death of vinyl", Skeptics revive the consumer hostile ten inch single format for their most commercial release ever. But fear not, true believers, by "commercial" I don't mean they've been taking Bryan Adams weight gain tablets or they've covered 'ltsy bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini' (actually that might be an interesting prospect), just that Sensible abounds with shiny surfaces and sweeping emotions, yes, just like 'And We Bake' and 'Sheen of Gold' only more so. Much as I hate to upset the "keep criticism objective (like bus timetables)" peasants, a cinematic analogy seems appropriate: if Skeptics 111 was Godard-like in its violent angles and poetic sense of the absurd this is pure Beneix, featuring a fireworks display ('Blue'), a panoramic dub wasteland ('Bub') and a quintessentially ghost-filled machine ('Sensible Shoes'). As pretentious as you make it and absolutely essential for it. MATTHEW HYLAND FAGAN I Still Want You (Warner Music) It's Andrew, of course, the same but a bit different. Paul Moss and Malcolm Smith have cooked up a nice, contemporary little rhythm for the unknown sailer's first solo voyage, but it really rests on the same virtues as all the best Fagan/Curtis compositions. That means a jolly good tune, a snappy chorus and a truckload of quirk. A hit, probably.

THE BATS The Boogey Man (Flying Nun) I'm coming around to the new hard-arsed (well, relatively) sound for the Bats, but this sort of falls between the gaps, being an old-style Bob Scott hopalong that's pleasant but hardly their finest hour. Pursuant to the creeping sense of dread in the new songs, 'Jetsam' opens with the lines "I see your body in the river/lt's been floating there for days", and 'Mama Come Watch' sounds a bit of a makeweight. The album works, but I don't know if this package does.

THE LILS Lodestone (Failsafe) Cassette/CD Like New Zealand's answer to the Undertones, high octane polished guitar pop in which the hard working Lils cover a few bases — from punky rock to folky strumming to good old classic; guitar jingle jangle. Some numbers ('Slab') tend to flatten out into extended guitar jangling, the effect — song after song — can be soporific. Sometimes the Lils are in need of an interesting tune or a decent riff — - overall, their songs lack a strong flavour. Still, there are a fair few of

them represented here, perhaps they have spread their ideas too thinly over thirteen tracks. But the Lils are working with good, solid raw ingredients and they show their pop sensibility to fine advantage on a song like 'Safer Now', on which they sound like Ratcat — and they're Number One in Australia!. DONNA YUZWALK