CD Reviews Pt 2: August 1997

Erasure
Cowboy
Maverick/Mute/Warner Brothers

Despite a wane in popularity, the newly-termed ‘electronica’ is currently all the rage-synth pop, that at times dubious yet intricate music made popular in the 80’s, has continued to thrive; especially here in Utah.

One of the genre’s pioneers remains one of its most enduring legends: Erasure. This remarkable duo, comprising synth guru Vince Clarke and the divinely voiced Andy Bell, has lasted an amazing 11 years, putting out an impressive 10 albums and an even more astounding 29 single releases (with number 30, “Rain,” coming in July on import)!

While one might argue that so much of this genre sounds too artificial and is often interchangeable, it is indeed a remarkable feat that Erasure’s 10th LP, the ironically-titled Cowboy, sounds so fresh after repeated listenings. After the disappointing sales of their brilliant 1995 self-titled release, the duo has returned to the basic format that put them on the map in the first place: the 3-minute pop gem. This concept is executed perhaps best in the form of what is their greatest asset: the mid-tempo ballad. Cowboy is chock-full of them. “In My Arms,” the album’s lead single, is a great example: a hypnotic melody and a beautiful, hummable chorus intertwine magnificently together.

Credit in part is due to this album’s co-producers. Neil McLellan, producing the music with Clarke, and Gareth Jones, producing the vocals with Bell, in separate countries nonetheless, have cultivated some of the best songs Erasure have written. This process of both members working separately and then hearing the seamless result is as stunning as it is fascinating. (Many of Cowboy‘s eleven original songs were first demoed by Clarke and Bell in Dublin, then literally swapped back and forth, from England to Spain, to the finished product.)

Clarke’s greatest strength on this album is how intriguingly he programs (being truly one of the genre’ originals) analogue synthesizers, with just a little digital technology thrown in, and comes up with music that is both rich in depth and warm sounding. Bell has rarely sounded so vibrant. Witness the transition on the ominous and brilliant “Treasure” from his mysterious whispering, to the full vocal; or the drama on the killer “Don’t Say Your Love Is Killing Me” or the irony on “Boy” and “Save Me Darling” and finally the longing and passion on “Love Affair.” Although composed mainly of ballads, Cowboy is not without its dance tracks. On the contrary, “Rain” and especially the amazing “Don’t Say Your Love Is Killing Me” measure up easily to their best classic “Sometimes,” “Stop!” “Chorus,” etc.

Clarke has said that the title Cowboy stems partially from the duo’s feeling like cowboys riding the range of the ever-changing record industry. Credit Madonna then, with her flair for marketing and business finesse, for snatching the duo up after Elektra dumped them due to poor record sales, and signing them to her Maverick label. Someone’s great  marketing skill has enticingly included two US-only bonus tracks to the first pressing of “Cowboy.” First up, their phenomenal version of Blondie’s classic “Rapture,” complete with Vince Clarke rapping! Like the best of their prior cover versions, Erasure have captured the original’s inventiveness while still updating its sound. The second bonus track, Burt Bacharach’s “Magic Moments,” was oddly first used on the ill-fated Lord Of Illusions soundtrack. Never radically changing a classic, more rather reinterpreting it, somehow “Magic Moments” fits remarkably well on this collection and is a great closing to the Cowboy album. —Dino

Texas
White on Blonde
Mercury

The album has already topped the UK album chart. The sound is described in a blurb on the rear of the advance CD as, “distinctly Texas and startlingly commercial.” Well! If Texas can remove the likes of Puff Daddy, Hanson, Robyn, Notorious Big and the Spice Girls from teeny-bopper bedrooms with “Say What You Want,” “Drawing Crazy Patterns,” or any of the other polished lower intestine discharge songs on the CD, all the better for them. I hate this garbage, but I believe I picked OMC as a hit a few months back. It is so bizarre, this prescient power. However, it is entirely possible that the disc will go nowhere. It could be that Texas as a group is too damn old for the teeny-boppers. Pitch the damn disc to the AC format and another brain dead form of wasted Earth life. I can see the office workers now. It’s lunch hour in the strip mall and the lemmings all have a copy of White On Blonde clutched beside the Franklin Daytimer. Four songs passed by in what seemed like a week trapped inside an Eddie Bauer store. That’s it, Sharlene Spiteri, go shriek elsewhere. —Ifu C. Kayoff

Skavoovie & the Epitones
Fat Footin’
Moon Ska Records

First there was the Punk resurgence… now ska, but how legit are most of the sounds coming down the turnpike? Few, but rest assured, since Skavoovie and company are most definitely the exception! A big band by any measure (10 very cool cats!), they push out a big sound as well, with a horn section that would make a skank lover shiver with excitement. Not a band to rush through a tune, the cuts off of this album are works of art, laying down some prime examples of rocksteady and ska alongside a sweeter big band sound.

Half the songs are just instrumental, flowing like wine to the listener’s ear, making you really want to shake your rump! By the time this review is printed, the band will have hit SLC and made their mark on the few lucky kids that get to enjoy their live show at the ska-fest on the west side of town. Barring any gunfights or gang warfare, this will be a tasty show to have missed, my fellow lovers of ska. —Billy Fish

Oxbow
Serenade In Red
SST Records

Dark and spooky like an old Hitchcock film, this album gives me the creeps like nothing I’ve heard in a long time. The slide guitar is heavy, screaming out in pure angst alongside the howling of the male vocalist that is too similar to David Yow of the Jesus Lizard… I love it! In fact, these guys sound so much like the Lizard and the Melvins, I can’t help but put this disc at the top of the list for “Must Buy!” on the summer choice list. It’s just so damn heavy! The songs aren’t even structured, really, relying mainly on power and aggression to blast the listener right out of the listening seat. Oxbow really reminds me also of the first time Neurosis moved from speed punk to just plain mean and angry noise from the depths of hell, which is where this young band is just starting from (good choice!). The guitar is the key tool, backed up by thundering drums, that sink rusty nails into the coffin of this wall of sound that is too huge to be ignored. Don’t bother picking this puppy up if you don’t have the system to turn it up and capture the true experience of Oxbow that it guarantees to deliver with enough volume. This shit’s for real! —Billy Fish

Mad Caddies
Quality Soft Core
Honest Den’s Hardly Used Recordings

Ska fans will usually agree that the difference between a band’s live show and their album is that they can sound fairly different. Most ska shows I’ve attended are full-on energy blasters, with the horn sections loud and heavy, and the group pushing an insatiable dance groove. I don’t dance much(at all), but have been known to dig a rock steady band that can play it smooth and rough at the drop of a hat. Mad Caddies are a cool band to catch (I caught their act last time I was in Cali), but their latest vinyl endeavor falls short of their live performance and energy. I recognized many of the same songs on the album as tunes they performed live at the all ages show, but none of them moved me to digging them further than one spin on the turntable. It’s a damn shame when a young and talented band can’t get the production they deserve in the studio to live up to their true talent and sound. In the end, save your money and catch the live show! —Billy Fish

Lutefisk
Burn in Hell Fuckers!
Bong Load Custom Records

I was lucky enough to catch these cats open up for the Breeders a while back, and was blown away by their act, so finding their latest disc in my box was a cool treat to follow up an amazing live performance. Imagine, if you would, the vocals of Thurston Moore with the jamming style of old Flaming Lips, especially in the trapkit section, and busting your nuts with every damn song! A lot of psychedelics had to have been consumed in the studio with this recording, ’cause the shit is flying everywhere and coming down like a rock to the cranium…it’s huge, baby! If the Beatles started something in the studio with Rubber Soul, the guitar sounds of Lutefisk have finished the job floating in like a butterfly to land like a shot-down pterodactyl in a fucked up Godzilla movie. This album is sheer genius with the power of the studio, for distorting the live sound with tape delays and samples of recorded and assorted shit, mixing up a stew of audio pain that kicks it right in the ass the more it’s listened to. I’ve heard this morsel at least twelve times in the last month, and it still sounds new to me. Try a new shot of druggie tunes and take a trip worth seeing again and again and again… —Billy Fish

Jack Drag
Unisex Headwave
Hep-Cat

Just when I was about to go out of my bloody head over tired sounds from new bands, along came this little gem that made it all worth it, by golly! This album screams, “Fuck the mainstream!” as it dives into uncharted waters with the influence of old sounds that fade in and out. Taking the wild sounds of a spectrum that has the range from Teen-Age Fanclub to Dinosaur Jr, this album is a kicking rollercoaster that goes off all over the place! The lyrics and vocals are the first thing to tickle your fancy, rolling over your eardrums like butter on a corncob, so damn sweet! Slipping up behind, like a dirty dog looking to do some humping, the guitar slides in, cranking some chords and crunch that would make the MC5 proud. Backed up by a drummer that would make Keith Moon stand up from the grave to rave, this band can kick it out like nobody else I’ve heard since the whole damn 60-70’s revival started up in this tired retro-decade, The 90’s will probably end up being known as the decade of the influenced (punk, ska, disco …ugh!), but at least some of the kids pushing the music will make an attempt to recreate old sounds will new style, like this tough trio. I dig this disc, and I’m sure most with a need for the new will too! —Billy Fish

Greg Garing
Alone
Paladin/Revolution

Alone was released a couple of months ago. I believe the gentleman works out of Nashville. He supposedly worked the streets and paved the way for BR5-49. Don’t stop reading, this isn’t another report from No Depression land. Garing is all fucked up. He’s playing country music, sort of. Garing’s country music is similar to Guitar Wolf or Zen Guerrilla playing the blues. He has a plaintive nature similar to that of Gillian Welch, but this boy isn’t some throwback to Appalachia. He’s Hank Williams, Roy Orbison and Chris Isaaks together in one head after about 20 hits of acid chased with two dime bags of heroin and a fifth of gin. If Emmylou Harris moved country music into the techno age with Wrecking Ball then Garing is the new trip hop/trance country music superstar. “Alone” is all funky groove with squawking fiddle. “Dream To Real” is as bleak as Gillian Welch writing songs with 16 Horsepower. Garing plays flute, mandolin, banjo, fiddle, guitar and acoustic piano on the CD. Peter Rowan (What in the hell?) is playing mandolin and singing harmony on “Where The Bluegrass Grows.” “Walk Away From Me” is as trippy as anything ever recorded by Portishead. “How The Road Unwinds” has more tributes to surf, garage, and classic rock ‘n’ roll road music per minute than the casual listener can comprehend. “Where The Bluegrass Grows” would drive a bluegrass purist completely crazy and I’m beginning to understand why Peter Rowan added his voice to Kate MacLeod‘s Constant Emotion work of melancholy. To date, Alone sits in a record shop bin unnoticed. Revolution is off promoting the Cunninghams while the treasure of their entire roster has escaped attention. Watch for the CD to appear on countless year-ending best-of lists and hope that some radio guy picks “How The Road Unwinds” for airplay. —Ifu C. Kayoff

Film Star
Super Cottonmouth Records

Southern California really is good for a few things, especially new music, but can still pump out a band or two and surprise me. Film Star, out of Santa Monica, is a strange crossbreed of Pavement and Dinosaur Jr., putting psychedelic guitar leads at the forefront, with a cool and sassy band that includes the cheesiest organ out on the circuit, barring Paul Shaeffer‘s on the Letterman show. There are some bands you can just feel in their music that they love to play live, and these fellas are a prime example of a group that sounds like jamming is a daily occurrence for them. The drummer is a blaze of rhythm, smacking the heads so damn hard, I’d be surprised if he wasn’t punching holes in his kit. I’m sure the reason for his amazing sticks is just to keep up with the blistering guitar work that goes off like an AK-47 at a redneck roundup, then slow and easy like a snake in the grass. Hopefully with a little luck and a whole lot of touring these kids will get more exposure and a bigger audience to dig their groovy sounds that are aching to be heard. —Billy Fish

Eric’s Trip
Long Days Ride ‘Till Tomorrow
Sub Pop

These poor saps broke up last year on tour, calling it quits for whatever reasons, and few really cried over their departure. This CD is a collection of various tunes, both live and studio, thrown together to let Sub Pop pick the carcass of the now defunct group for any leftover scraps of income. I saw these people play a few times in the Northwest awhile back, and I don’t really remember anything too outstanding to remark on. The trouble with the kiddies from Portland to Seattle is the repeated sound of whining and semi-angst that just seems to be more over the shitty weather than anything heartfelt.

How many times can you really cry over a split Rainier? I’m not trying to diss on legitimate emo-core bands like Some Velvet Sidewalk and Built to Spill, which play the same circuit, but Eric’s Trip just didn’t do it for me, and this disc is a gentle reminder of that fact. If you’re going to boo-hoo over something, make it love or drugs, but not losing your car keys or your friends finishing the last beer in the frig. Let Ween or Half Japanese do that and shed some comedy on the topic in the process. Besides, that way you can laugh with the band, not at them! —Billy Fish

Read more CD reviews from the archives:
CD Reviews Pt 1: August 1997
Written in Blood: August 1997

If this is making you nostalgic, you must have been with us from the beginning. Consider joining our community of donors!