Page ten

 

 

The Other Press

[XTC and Hall & Oates Reviewed

 

 

 

 

 

Now showingat 820Granville Mall

Capital 6

 

 

 

 

by Duane Rockerbie

EMERSON, LAKE &
PALMER In Concert

You know some albums |
just really love to tear apart
in print.

As a form of music, |
thought ‘‘art-rock’’ died
soon after it began around
ten years ago, but appa-
rently one group keeps re-
emerging from the grave,
the dreaded ELP. It resur-
rects when we least expect
it, leaving behind a pile of
confusing garbage that no
ne can decipher.

You know they really
fooled us with their as-
sumed swansong album
“‘Love Beach’’, but you
can’t kill the undead.

It seems all these three
guys are trying to prove is
that they play the most
boring and pointless solos
around with bits of har-
mony squeezed in between.
Pointless synthesizer nood-
ling, shameless audience
pandering, lyrics. beyond
the limits of banality, the
rape of ‘’Pictures at an
Exhibition’’, it’s all there
and only for $7.98.

With mallot in hand |

’ drove the wooden stake

through the vinyl and lept
back as the — record
screamed in a demonic tone
and then quietly turned to
dust. But later, as | turned
on the radio with trembling
fingers, there were the
cold, shallow sounds... .
the sounds of ELP, the
band that wouldn’t die.

 

HALL & OATES X-Static

Daryl Hall and John
Oates have been criticizing
society and its’ little quarks
for a long time now, while
developing more and more
of a heavy metal approach
on every album. This me-
thod seems to have peaked
on their 1978 LP ‘Along
the Red Ledge’’, a fine
album but a striking. con-
trast from previous albums
like ‘‘Beauty on the Back-
streets’’.

Their new album ‘’X-

Static’’ has them getting -
back down to what they do

best: sing and play in a
style more firmly rooted in
rhythm and blues, empha-
sizing melodic lines and
rhythms fused with the
instrumental colorings of
rock.

They seem to have struck
a fine and inviting balance.
Many of the songs are
reminiscent of their biggest
previous hits, especially
“Wait for Me’’, a first
cousin of ‘‘She’s Gone’’,
and that is meant as a com-
pliment.

There is even a polite
gesture towards disco with
the appropriately _ titled
‘‘Portable Radio’’, but it is

February 18, 1980

tastefully done. The last
three tracks on the album
provide those’ who prefer
Hall & Oates for their
heavy metal style complete
satisfaction. |

All in all a fine effort
from two consistently good
musicians»

 

XTC Drums and Wires

Where does England.
keep coming up with these
sensational avant-garde
bands?

XTC, a group which e-
merged in the middle of
1977, strongly reminds me
of another group formed
the same year, Talking
Heads. The parallelisms
are easy to point out: Andy.
Partridge’s paranoid sing-
ing ranks with | David
Byrne, intriguing shuffling
rhythms, and a great diver-
sity of styles. However,
XTC, unlike Talking Heads,
show a great sense of
humour with tunes like
““Scissor Man”’ and ‘‘Roads
Girdle the Globe’’.

The best racks on the
album are ‘‘Life Begins at
the Hop’’, the story of
growing up around an ado-
lescent dance hall, ‘‘Mil-
lions’’, which criticizes
bands who sell-out to wes-
tern commercialism, and
the hit ‘“Making Plans for

Nigel’’, which is too bizarre

to try interpreting.

This effort from XTC is
what | feel is one of the first
of the second or even third
wave of music from Eng-
land, that is, albums which
are more carefully thought
out, more sophisticated by
mixing pop, reggae, and
other styles into a balanced
blend, and _ technically
much better produced and
more polished, a welcome
change from overly simplis-
tic music seen in North
American i.e. (guess who)
the Knack, Cheap Trick,
etc.

 

 

Sometimes | sit back and
ponder what is going on in
the minds of the record-
buying public out there.
Just glancing at the weekly
Top-20 sales, | noticed
many records which in no
way deserve to even be ina
Top-50, namely albums like
the Eagles’ ‘’The Long
Run’ and Pink Floyd's
“The Wall’.

The only answer is that
the average rock fan buys
records on faith and not by
quality, exclaiming ‘’Yeah,
man, Led Zeppelin’s got
good guitars.’’ I’m not
knocking anybody but it
sure is a shame. For those
of you who don’t buy

=

 

 

records: Never mind.