Viva Voce - Get Yr Blood Sucked Out (Full Time Hobby) 14/08/2006

T: Their time will come. It has to. Few bands can hope to make an album as versatile as this one.

N:It's easy to understand Viva Voce's place supporting Death Cab For Cutie on recent dates. From the wild cacophony of sound displayed on the opening track, to the dark undertones projected on their recent single and it may be said lead track of this album. As has been suggested 'Get Yr Blood Sucked Out' may well be best described as versatile, with thumping tracks interspersed by the mellow. Certainly a cracking release, perhaps this is what the bastard offspring of Motorhead and The Cocteau Twins would sound like. But in fairness, this album is like a patchwork quilt with all the best bits added. Influences coming from far and wide, keeping the listener continually entertained.

T: Hmm. I fail to see even a vague similarity with Lemmy's boys, but the Cocteau Twins - at times that's extremely accurate. Incidentally, it might be a bit like your quilt, but there are a hell of a lot less stains on it. There are some fascinating tracks here - the remarkably short "Bill Bixby" is a pleasant piano solo instrumental track, and, as you just pointed out to me as I listened, the brilliant "We Do Not Fuck Around" is wonderfully Floydian. The band that tends to get the most credit in the media these days is The Flaming Lips, but I have to say - Viva Voce do a similar thing but better. One of the best albums of the year without any shadow of doubt. 9/10

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The Associates - Wild and Lonely (1990) / Billy Mackenzie - Outernational (1992) (EMI) 07/08/2006

T: If ever there was a criminally overlooked and underrated band, it was surely The Associates. "Sulk" is far and away one of the best albums released in the eighties, and would quite possibly make my all time top 50. As it is, they had to make do with one top ten hit - "Party Fears Two", and two further, slightly less successful top 30 hits. Mackenzie of course, was later the subject of the 1984 Smiths hit "William, It Was Really Nothing". It's a pity that nobody really cared about them that much after their initial success, but perhaps the Glaswegian frontman's enigmatic personality had something to do with that. The crying shame is that The Associates - in whatever form - continued to release some top notch tunes with some astonishing vocal takes from Mackenzie. On "Wild and Lonely", the band sounds almost like a Motown act cross stitched with the forthcoming early nineties dance phenomenon.

N: I do remember this band, although perhaps not with quite the same gusto as other artists who were around at the time. From listening to "Wild and Lonely", what does come across is that these were more a band without any agenda to push, and as suhc might have suffered because of this. Not that the music appears any less, and I would even say is lifted from a greater depth in composition. Perhaps more of an album with pop pretences than anything else.

T: Mackenzie showed his nous on his solo release two years later, when he predated Coolio's number one smash "Gangsta's Paradise" with the purer version of the track (Pastime Paradise) by some three years. Quite evidently he'd been taken in by The Beloved's starkly beautiful soft dance rhythms by then and this comes across to great effect on this album. It's one of rock and pop's greatest tragedies that Mackenzie saw fit to take his own life early in 1997 after money and drug problems; he deserved to be one of the biggest stars of all time. The fact that he didn't played a big part in his downfall.

N: From my passing comment that this album would be "quite similar" to that of the last Associates album was wildly misplaced. The album appears deeper in composition, both musically and voally, and if anything, is an album with greater dance leanings than anything The Associates did. That he may have referenced one of the smoothe dance artists in The Beloved was genius, and certainly puts this album along those in my record collection.

Results: Wild and Lonely 7/10
Outernational 8/10

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Heaven 17 - Re-issues - Penthouse and Pavement (1981) / The Luxury Gap (1983) / How Men Are (1984) (Virgin) 07/08/2006

N: How you can hold with great affection releases that held a special place in one's own personal developement. 'Penthouse and Pavement' was an album whose content and artwork not only held a place in my own growing up, but as I look back now was its own social commentary. Coming from what was originally the Human League, Martyn Ware and Iain Craig Marsh, following differences of opinion left the band to form this pollitically astute collective with Glenn Gregory and The Heaven 17 was born (reference 'A Clockwork Orange' for clues as to where the band derived their name). With a more driven sound than the earlier quoted group, these were certainly part of the new romantic scene.

T: Not just social commentary, but a deep underlying political disgust with the right wing regime. Indeed, Radio One banned the band's first single, due to implications that the new president of the time - a certain Ronald Reagan - was a fascist. John Peel, of course, continued to champion it. Anyway this is as angry as a pop album can be and while Heaven 17 tend to get lumped in with the New Romantic scene of the time, the fact is that they were far more experimantal than most bands that fell under that bracket, and it would be doing them a great disservice to refer to them as such. P&P stands as one of the great debut albums of our time.

N: 1983 saw the release of "The Luxury Gap", and an album which comes in like a scene from Mark Lester's "Class of 1984", a film it obviously influenced. Another example of the band's social commentary can be heard, taken from a time when the country was driven hard by our leaders. "Crushed by the Wheels of Industry" was lyrically an indictment of this, and was certainly as astute - if not more so - than "(We Don't Need This) Fascist Groove Thang", although I remember this album for the track "Temptation", a single whose high chart placing made it a memorable TOTP appearance.

T: "How Men Are" was even more of a bitter attack on the way the country was run than any of its predecessors, but somehow lacked the punch of either of them. Not to say it's a bad album - the majestic single "Sunset Now" still shines brightly, but at times it just seems a little too over-produced and panders too much to the demands of the chart buying public for my liking. I'd sum Heaven 17's career up by saying they released one brilliant album, one very good one and one slightly above average one.

N: I'd agree here. The band's 1984 release, although kicking off in true Heaven 17 fashion with "Five Minutes to Midnight", turned out to be a somewhat lacklustre affair. The band didn't appear quite as forthright as they had been on previous releases. "Sunset Now" was certainly this album's "Shining Light", and although remaining on the same social commentary slant, if anything, the album demonstrates that the band appear to have become what it was they once despised.

Results;

Penthouse and Pavement 9/10
The Luxury Gap - 8/10
How Men Are - 6/10

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Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band - Re-issues - Unconditionally Guaranteed (1974) / Bluejeans and Moonbeams (1974) / Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller) (1978) / Doc at the Radar Station (1980)/ Ice Cream For Crow (1982) / Live In London (Drury Lane 1974) (EMI Virgin) 07/08/2006

N: An artist whose cult status is greater than any commercial success they may have had.

T: Listening back, it's easy to see the lifelong influence that Frank Zappa had on the young Don Vliet (who eventually adopted the moniker Captain Beefheart after a shelved film project with his friend and mentor). Beefheart's material is undoubtedly more accessible than Zappa's to the man on the street, sometimes possessing a dreamy quality, sometimes a laid back vibe, often quirky and occasionally quite frightening. That distinctive vocal style won the hearts of critics worldwide but somehow never realised its potential amongst the general public. Indeed, it's only really now that these albums are beginning to be regarded as classics. The earlier "Trout Mask replica" has, of course, been long regarded so, but these re-issues contain a wealth of intensely diverse material and demand reanalysis. The most likely album to make "legendary" status from this bunch is probably "Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller)", but really they're all worth getting. Beefheart's bluesy, jazzy and rocky numbers are all remarkably impressive. You can see where the late great Warren Zevon got some of his ideas when you listen to these albums too.

N: That only one of these albums we're reviewing today ever achieved any modicum of chart success, albeit in a very lowly position at that, is quite astounding. Certainly an artist who was before his time, and I'll come clean here - when I first heard of this band, perhaps fifteen years ago now, I was convinced that Captain Beefheart was a solo musician. A dark figure, perhaps a little like that of the late lamented Syd Barrett. Instead I found a road movie of a band, headed by the eponymous captain, who sounds like he's just drunk a gallon of gasoline, and as you said was hugely influenced = and influential it would appear, listening to both the music and lyrics.

T: I can't believe you said "I'll come clean", considering the well known urban myth of how Beefheart got the name...each album here gets 9/10 anyway.

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Poison - Re-issues - Look What the Cat Dragged In (1986)/ Open Up and Say...Ahh! (1988)/ Flesh and Blood (1990) (EMI) 31/07/2006

T: Here in Britain of course, this band is known primarily for their 1989 double whammy of "Every Rose Has Its Thorn" and "Your Mama Don't Dance". After that there was "Unskinny Bop" a year later and a plethora of less well known hits that graced the arse end of the UK top 40. I have to be honest and say that I remember only the latter three singles, so it's quite interesting to go back and re-evaluate.

N: Pretty boys (mmm maybe I should rethink this description). Memories are of an awful lot of glam, and concentration on overdriven guitar, but as for this album (Look What the Cat Dragged In), what is apparent is how much this band were influenced by grandaddys AC/DC. As for the album, not that impressive really.

T: Oddly enough, I thought, although it isn't really my bag so to speak, that it was bristling with the energy that only a debut album from a band in their youth can give out. I would imagine I'm going to prefer this one to the nest two albums but only time will tell...7/10

T: On to Open Up and Say Ahh! I wasn't wrong was I? The band seem to have metamorphosed at this stage into a stadium pomp-rock act by this album, licking the boots loyally of the newly promoted kings of the rock world, Guns N Roses, and the whole of America, as well as large portions of the UK, fell for it. That's not to say they sound like Slash and co all that much - it's more a hybrid of Def Leppard and Aerosmith for the most part. It's hard to take the band seriously, and as a result they're impossible to hate, so I suppose I should give them credit for that. And of course, "Every Rose Has Its Thorn" is still shit.

N: Now to MY opinion, this comes across as a more confident release, and one from a band who have learn their trade, complete with impact, they have suddenly become 3D - more lively, and certainly less like another band, and more like themselves (this IS Guns N Roses we're reviewing isn't it?) 7/10

T: The final piece of the jigsaw - Flesh and Blood. It would appear that this is where the band took their thorns in a slightly different direction by making a bunch of country and western songs and turning them into rock tunes. There are a few moments of triumph, such as the slide guitar soaked "Swampjuice (Soul-O)" and I must confess I always had a soft spot for "Unskinny Bop" (no idea why - I should have hated it), but too often they are bitten by the stadium rock bug again.

N: Now this is where we finally agree. Here we meet the cartoon element of Poison, a band who had become a parody of themselves. Their most successful album, from a group who have found their market, and as a result produced a hugely more commercial release. It reeks of rock 'n' roll cliches - guitars are squeaked and amps ramped to 11, but where is "Big Bottom" amongst these? Now this is REALLY odd, because I was going to say "Take a listen to "Swampjuice", where guitar skills are demonstrated to great effect and I think it was the video for "Unskinny Bop" you had the soft spot for.

T: In a nutshell, "Flesh and Blood" is a whole lot of fun. 8/10

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