Dwight Twilley Band - Sincerely

Sincerely (1976) ****

Twilley hit the charts in 1975 with the modernized-rockabilly for-the-state-of-the-'70s smash, "I'm On Fire," which updated Elvis' classic swagger for the chest-medallion and bell-bottoms age, but failed to deliver a followup in timely fashion; by the time his debut album was released, eighteen long months had passed, thus quashing Twilley's nascent rise to stardom.  A pity, as not only is "I'm On Fire," a perfect single of roots-rock classicism, but this album of relatively diverse pop-rockers ranks as one of power pop's great lost classics. And in its swinging-hipped fusion of '50s Southern rock with '60s British Invasion pop, one of the most distinctive - Big Star were considerably too Anglophile to get the correct dosage of both influences down just right.  With Twilley and partner-in-Beatlemania Phil Seymour recording nearly all the instruments themselves in their downhome Tulsa studio, the sound is attractively sparse with lots of breathing room between the notes, if on the downside a little musty and lacking proper punch & fire due to the somewhat demo-ish origins. 

The opener is naturally - you guesstimated it - "I'm On Fire," and a better intro to a debut couldn't be wished, but there are plenty of more fine songs; if none of the tunes are as great as the single, there's really not a bad or less than good song on here.  The murky psychedelia of the title track, with its mid-break mini-symphony of backwards phased guitars, ranks almost as stellar, and either the jingly "You Were So Warm," or the jangly "Just Like the Sun," could've placed in the charts as a followup single.  The material ranges from the sorta-annoying rockahillbilly chug of "T.V.," to the Raspberries aimlessly driving up and down the strip, "Baby, Let's Cruise," to the "Good Day Sunshine"-piano-isms of "Could Be Love," while maintaining an easy stylistic unity due to Seymour & Twilley's consistency of dusty-musty homebrewed sound.  The duo's Anglophilia rears its haunches most obviously in the homage to black-hills-I-ain't-never-seen (real Anglophiles should get that reference), "England," but even on that cut it's impossible to imagine an English band cutting it:  the sound couldn't have come out of anywhere else but eastern Oklahoma.  There's something arid about it, you know what I mean?  But not sunbaked.  The atmospheric soul clearly hails from the western deserts, but there's more than a touch of southern slapback funkiness to it - just like eastern Oklahoma itself.

The Fall - Perverted By Language

Perverted By Language (1983) ***

First album punk, second album post-punk, third album rockabilly, fourth album noise rock, fifth album shit, and this the sixth album is art rock.  Art groove rock, I should say; only three of the original eight songs (let's ignore bonus tracks until the end of this review) are under five minutes, and surprise, surprise, they're also three of the best tracks.  "I Feel Voxish," throbs with one of the catchiest and danceable post-disco bass lines of their entire career, and at a relatively swift 2:42, "Neighbourhood of Infinity," is even better and my choice for best cut on the album.  "Hotel Bloedel," drags on too long at 3:48, but the melody is lovely, and the scraping violin gives it an Amon Düül II-ish touch.  That track also introduces the presence of the lovely and talented Brix Smith, who lullaby-sings the melody with buried-in-the-mix vocals while even-more-murkily-buried Mark E. recites behind her a tale of Civil War ghosts.  Her influence on the band is going to prove crucial, but not on this album, not yet - aside from "Hotel Bloedel," she barely registers as a presence.

The rest of the tracks linger on far too long.  The problem is that art-rock and primitivism on the whole do not mix:  if you want to perform an eight-minute epic, it helps if you know how to play your instruments well.  Basing a song on one basic nagging guitar riff might have worked if "Garden," had been halved of its ridiculously bloated 8:45 length.  "Smile," is equally primitive, but it works because it's built as an ascending-in-intensity & volume rhythmic assault, and stands out as the album's most excitingly driven track.  "Tempo House," and "Hexen Definitive/Strife Knot," close the remaining sixteen minutes of the album by seemingly going on forever, as both tracks are built on rhythmic vamps whose groove never gets groovy or hypnotic.  Repeating the same four notes of bass for eight minutes doesn't work either, Mr. Hanley.  But to get to those final tracks, first you have to make it past the hurdle of the opening track, "Eat Y'Self Fitter," one of the most annoying tracks in Fallstory (or anybody's).  Oh well, at least its admixture of a heavy bass line and whistling woodwinds sortakinda reminds me of prog-era Move.

Now, the bonus tracks, which are again shoved upfront.  Except for "Pilsner Trail," which concludes the CD, and sucks.  "The Man Whose Head Expanded," is passable faux-psychedelia, and its B-side, "Ludd Gang," is a slice of rockabilly that's even better than the A-side.  The other single included here, "Kicker Conspiracy," is a faux-humorous faux-epic accounting of English soccer hooligans abroad in Italy or Granada or wherever drunk British sports fans throwup and start fights and generally give U.K. tourists the foul reputation they have on the Continent.  The flipside, "Wings," once again dabbles in paranoid psuedo-mystical ramblings about ghosts and time travel, just as in "Hotel Bloedel."  It's got a nice riff and thumping beat to it.

In short, as it mostly consists of length, experimental vamps and grooves, it's one of the Fall's least accessible albums and certainly not a good starting point for entry.  However, a lot of seasoned Fall fans rate this a lot higher than I do and consider this one of their essential classics.  But then again, what do they know - there's a reason I refer to'em as Fallnatics.  Discrimination ain't one of their long suits.

Ooo, lookee below!  First appearance on national TV with John Peel and that dude who played boogie-woogie piano on "Cool For Cats"! 

The Pipettes - Earth vs. the Pipettes

Earth vs. the Pipettes (2010) ***1/2

Only one of the girls who'd sung on Meet the Pipettes is still on board, but that's not the major change: they've ditched the girl group sound.  No longer do they want to be the Shangri-La's, but are intent on vibing like they're Rose Royce at a car-wash disco circa 1978.  Only svengali Phil Spector-cum-Malcolm McLaren wannabe Monster Bobby is still masterminding the pretty marionettes behind the veil of sunglass shades.  The change in sound creates a major problem:  who the hell needs this?  Aren't there already a jillion Spice Girl wannabes riding the post-disco, post-Madonna slutwave that's dominated modern Top 40 since 1985?  One step forward into modernism equals a step forward into genericism.  Luckily, if you sadly resign yourself to what you're getting (and for anyone who was a fan of the first album, oh brother it's going to be a difficult transition to adjust to), what you get amounts to an excellent modern-day pop album.  The melodies are still intact, aren't they?  You can still sing along to all these tunes, and even get a few lodged in your head, right?  You can dance to it?  Decidedly yes.  What more should you expect from commercial pop product?  Some innovation?  A little emotional heft?  Oh shut up, my inner nagging naysayer grumpuss.

Problem #2:  the lyrics are nothing special, and considering that the lyrical content constituted half the hooks on the debut, the lack of edgy missives from the gender wars is a serious hobble.  Aside from some generic bitchy-isms like "Our love is history," and "You've been running around all over town," (yes, seriously, the lyrics are that cliched), there's no edge to their bite.  The songs all cover predictable romance'n'dance fare, the bubbleheaded discoapist travails of the modern high-heeled, plastic-jewelry encrusted, puffed-hair guidette.  Yeah, I know they don't have guidettes in England, but see, that's another problem, the Englishness is gone, too - you can still detect the accents from time to time, but there's another casualty of transatlantic generica. 

When people argue over whether lyrics or music are more important, they're making the mistake of looking at music-creating in far too binary of a manner.  Lyrics are certainly one element that's important in a well-constructed song in the popular music form, along with rhythm, arrangement, vocals, chord progression, melody, etc.  One element that is vital is the hook.  Now what is a hook?  A hook can be defined as something that makes you remember the song; a piece of the song that can occur once or several times that enables the song to lodge into your brain.  The point I'm making is that lyrics can equally serve as hooks just as well as melody lines or drum beats.  So, by downgrading the lyrics on their second album, the Pipettes have thrown out a massive databank of hooks, a source that served them so well on the first album.  Where are the twists and turns to these curves?  Have I mentioned that the girls look a lot uglier in their current incarnation?  Since they were hired mostly for their visual not musical appeal, it's fair game for sexist commentary.  And oh, how I miss the sexist commentary of the original girl-group Pipettes.  This is a catchy, solidly tuneful and danceable disco-pop album if you like that sort of thing.  Do I ever wish to hear it again?  No.  But I don't want to look like a snobbish hypocrite for completely writing it off just because it's in a genre I don't like.  In other words, the numerical rankings are just a rough, rough shorthand; actually read the reviews if you want to know what a record's about.

P.S.  One more point about how lyrics can ruin/elevate the music:  "Our Love Was Saved By a Spaceman," is by far the worst track, and guess why?



The Fall - Room To Live

Room to Live (1982) **

So Hex Enduction Hour was apparently too polished for Mark E.'s liking and thus he rounds up the band, throws'em in the studio, and bashes this lengthy EP/LP hybrid (36 minutes, long enough for an album for me) out quickly to capture an off-the-cuff, loose feel.  As if previous Fall LPs weren't loose and off the cuff enough in the first place.  Predictably, it's a disaster, the first Fall album not worth your money or downloading time.  The songs are underwritten, mostly hanging on one repetitive riff and dragging on for four or five minutes, and not hypnotically, but boringly.  "Detective Instinct," is the worst offender in this category, as Mark simply mutters the title chorus as a hook for nearly six minutes, while the band trods behind him musically adrift and directionless.  Too many of the songs sound like they were written on the spot, and even if they weren't written in five minutes, they were certainly performed in five minutes with no rehearsal, as even a cursory listen makes clatteringly clear.  Mark's vocal melodies are still as strong as ever, which suggests that he had these songs formed in his head before he stepped in the studio; however, he did not give such forethought to the band's music, or apparently give them a chance to brew up some interesting chords and changes to match Mark's lyrics & vocals.  "Marquis Cha-Cha," shows the failed potential:  with its attempt at Latin rhythm and compelling lyrics about the Falklands War, it could've been an ace tune if given more time to develop and a band that had played it more than once.  "Joker Hysterical Face," which opens the platter, also shows potential, with its intriguing politicized lyrical sloganeering and sharp little guitar hook/riff.  "Papal Visit," on the other hand, is completely unsalvageable, and by far the worst-ever Fall track so far: six minutes of hideous scraping violin while Mark mumbles unintelligibly about Pope John Paul II.  The CD does have two bright spots, a pair of bonus tracks that were originally released as a single and by themselves making the album not totally unworthwhile for Fallnatics, as they are actually produced and fully developed songs that are a million times better than anything on the album itself.  "Fantastic Life," is overproduced synth-pop, of all things, the Fall's first foray into such waters.  Even better is "Lie Dream of a Casino Soul," a cheeseful of keyboard garage pop in which Mark contemplates cutting his dick off because it got him into too much trouble.  The reissue adds a few live cuts as bonus tracks, but so what, who cares, they're not all that worth hearing.  A serious step back from the sound of Hex, but hey, they've got fifty albums, they're allowed a dodgy one or dozen.

Hugh Cornwell & Robert Williams - Nosferatu

Nosferatu (1979) **1/2

This is either a 0 or 5 star album depending upon the listener's proloctivities, and thus the average mean of 2.5 is mathematically derived.  Actually, it's not that extreme: pairing with then-Magic Band drummer Robert Williams, Cornwell's first solo effort not so unexpectedly sounds like a self-consciously bizarre cross of the Stranglers and Captain Beefheart.  It's as much Williams' showcase as Cornwell's - though they are Hugh's songs, his rhythmic clatterings help give the album quirky sonic flavoring.  Forget my first sentence - it's pretty accessible compared to most of Beefheart's music.  But what isn't?  This is dark, challenging, and unaccessible music by almost anyone else's standards.  Combining goth atmosopherics and tunecraft (just look at the cover and title - Nosferatu was the name of a silent vampire film classic) with the angular discordance of Beefheart is an ambitious move - and while this album can be an interesting listen, it's not always an enjoyable listen.  This challenging music too often demands more from the listener than repeated listens eventually deliver.

The problem is not so much the sound - which is, after all, what's intriguing here - but the songs, which seem too self-consciously quirky and offbeat (in both the weird and rhythmic sense) to fully work.  On first listen, the only track that stood out in memory was a fair cover of Cream's "White Room,"; but that's because it's the only song here that's even remotely commercial, and was likely thrown on the LP simply to ensure at least some airplay & sales.  Not that there aren't some poppy moments - the closer, "Puppets," is pure electropop, and "Wrong Way Round," is nice'n'sleazy Stranglified pub rock anchored in choppily angular Beefheartesque guitar squiggle.  So you can see how even the poppier numbers have too many discordant edges to go down smoothly; every time you latch onto what resembles a danceable beat, Williams deliberately throws the rhythm off-kilter, and every time Cornwell delivers a smart hook, the hook gets too smart for itself and twists in a contrary direction.  The title track that opens the longplayer may get its hooks jammed too fast but at least it's fast and barely over a minute & a half long, and has the distinction of being perhaps the first (only?) example of Goth No Wave.  "Wired," is even more No Wave-ish with its honkingly atonal saxes and crosswire rhythms, and abjurance of melody - Cornwell plays his vocals for odd rhythms rather than melodics.  The approach isn't so effective on creepy crawlers like "Losers in a Lost Land," and "Big Bug," which seem to stretch on endlessly at their respective 4 1/2 and 5 1/2 minutes.  "Irate Caterpillar," is perhaps the emblematic track, in that there's nice psychedelic pop number inside, if you squint at it hard enough, but so doused up in quirkily discordant Beefheart-isms that you wouldn't notice at first.

Verdict: frustrating.  After repeated listens I've grown to sort of like this album, but I can't in good conscience really recommend it for the average listener.  Certainly not an unsuspecting Stranglers fan, as aside from Cornwell's trademark vocal mannerisms, there's little here resembling his band's more polished and commercial material.  Perhaps some of the weirder tunes on Black and White - imagine an entire album of tracks like "Do You Wanna?" and "Rise of the Robots".  If that prospect sounds appealing, then indulge in this indulgence.  It's easy to see why Cornwell felt that he had to do this album outside of the Stranglers, as the music herein is considerably removed from that band's sound.  An interesting experimental sidetrack to footnote the Stranglers' ouvre.     

The Fall - A Part of America Therein

A Part of America Therein (1982) **

"From the riot torn streets of Manchester, England to the scenic sewers of Chicago," it's another Fall album, and eh, so what. Track listing:

1 The N.W.R.A. Hanley, Scanlon, Smith 10:57
2 Hip Priest Hanley, Riley, Scanlon, Smith 7:58
3 Totally Wired Riley, Scanlon, Smith 4:06
4 Lie Dream of a Casino Soul Hanley, Riley, Scanlon, Smith 2:57
5 Cash 'N' Carry Hanley, Riley, Scanlon, Smith 6:42
6 An Older Lover Hanley, Hanley, Riley, Scanlon, Smith 6:50
7 Deer Park Burns, Riley, Scanlon, Smith 4:30
8 Winter Scanlon, Smith 7:35

Thank you cut & paste from the All Music Guide. As you can see, most of the material is the slower stuff, and that's not good. I love the version of "Totally Wired," on here, though. "Cash 'N' Carry," has Mark changing the lyrics to "C'N'C S Mithering", and is notable for the jibe that there are two types of factories in Manchester, factories that create dead men and a Factory that lives off a dead man. "I think you know what Factory I'm talking about." You see, the Fall's chief rival in late '70s Manchester was another band signed to label called Factory Records, and their lead singer -- oh, forget it, if I have to explain the joke, it's not funny anymore. Anyway, I don't care much for the song selection and it sounds like it was mastered from field recordings from the backstage loo. It is contained in its entirety on a two-fer CD with the extended EP Slates, which is the only reason I'm reviewing it. I mean, I listened to the damn thing, I might as well get a review out of it for my pains.

Jean-Jacques Burnel - The Euroman Cometh



The Euroman Cometh (1979) **

JJ recorded this album all by his own self during studio downtime during the Black and White sessions, using a drum machine for to aid his instantly identifiable bass.  The sound is electro post-punk, indebted as much to Kraftwerk and Donna Summer as much as the Stranglers, and is not unappealing - very, very odd and several degrees in weirdness from commerciality.  The songwriting is....uh....not all there, and the album as a whole is, frankly, awful.  But there's enough of a tantalizing bizarreness to bring me back, to render an album full of such silly and unlistenable songs a sometimes agreeable listening experience.  Stranglers fans should probably give this platter a download and a good listen at least once (for godsakes' don't spend any actual money on it) simply for the sheer weirdness of it all.  Most of the songs sound like the rough, underwritten one-man-band studio pissoffs that they were, even if it's clear that JJ's heart was devoted to it, but at least two tracks are triumphs.  "Freddie Laker (Concorde & Eurobus)," towers over everything else here and could pass for a great lost Chairs Missing era Wire single, as Burnel alters his voice electronically to mimic the roar of jet engines in a tribute to the airline magnate of the title.  "Do the European," dances this mess around in a twisted academic treatise of post-modern disco, and isn't quite as good but still a worthwhile track.  The rest is mostly crap like the puerile "Crabs," not so offensive for the VD subject matter but for the puerile simplicity of its a-3-year-old-could-have-written-and-performed-this music.  "Pretty Face," is an unpleasantly frenetic and harmonica-drenched cover of a soul obscurity, and "Triumph (of the Good City)" a novelty instrumental dedicated to the motorcycle of the title, complete with the sampled sounds of it revving up.  A few tracks contain pleasant touches such as the ominous bass line in "Euromess," and the engaging pop melody of "Jellyfish," but not enough to save them from underperformed, underwritten, underbaked, overblown crapstacular status.

I've gotten so far into this review without mentioning the theme and lyrical content, which is the first matter that should grab any listener's interest, as titles like "Euromess," "Do the European," and "Euroman," make clear, as do JJ's singing of one song in German ("Deutchsland Nicht Uber Alles") and another in his native French ("Tout Comprende").  The political concept of pan-European Unionism was simple but ahead of his time, and Burnel self-righteously indulges in his pan-nationalistic Eurochauvinism on this piece of self-indulgent political propaganda.  It's not subtle at all and unshockingly JJ's Euroband did not tour on any North American dates.  Anyway, such a political stance shouldn't be surprising coming from a cosmopolitan hybrid of French & English parentage & loyalties, but devoting an entire album to Europa Uber Alles seems a wee bit over the top.  Like I said, it's worth a listen due to its sheer oddness:  not so much the lyrical content, but the Europeanized very circa 1979 sound that sonically signifies this album as actually unique, as the world doesn't have enough Kraftwerk-influenced post-punk psuedo-disco lo-fi-but-high-tech albums as it needs.  The album has a sort of perverse pull on my earlobes from an intellectual standpoint (neat sounds), but can't stop me from eventually concluding that, aside from two standout tracks, this indeed is pretty awful.