Record Mirror, July 12, 1980 21

Ing in off the freezerll was Listening to 'Three without voicing my admira- about as close as can JEFF BECK: 'There a you strawberry fool to meet Times As Bad', 1 & was tion fn. the choice of -Date to a 'hit without charting, Back' (EPIC EPC her" (shades or Har- reminded too much of the Krantz rison's as lead vocalist. via 'Daylight Katy'. So 8288) 'Savoy Truffle' classic 'Freebird', with the She has a kind of raw 'Dream Street Rose' is from the 'While his YUP, BECKO's back not Album' distinctive piano style of Joplin aggression that first shot a - there). Their in while, and so much with a ballads are Billy Powell forcing seems to Insinuate "we're even he'll lace the fact vengeance but with an better than pleasant, too nostalgia Into the album a new band, and don't you that it won't win him many assorted bunch of 'You're Always The just when I was hoping I forget 11" you're not a new friends, But thankful- Last To - sweeties all the same He Know' and more could look upon this as a new band, but the least I ly there's still some notably sort of disappeared while the the very pretty 'Cl- new band. can do Is to respect a market for the kind of angst of New Wave boiled ing To Me', a song of However, for a moment brave attempt. + + + distinctive. Ilstenable and festered In the cities touching honesty and In 'Get Away', we do get PHANG cameos that Gord writes, - so what has been the dependence. Like the away from the Lynyrd resultant metamorphosis? album Itself; and just Skynyrd taste with a GORDON There's his homely, Beck has ripened, got a because they haven't slightly more commercial L I G H T F O O T: husky voice to love as tighter style (as In more scored that follow-up hit number. Alas, the 'Dream Street Rose' well, enhancing the title yet doesn't originality does not last track on a single, and disciplined) and a mean they've (Warner Bros K56802) the definitive sophistication ceased to exist. +'+ + + and from 'Winners Arid familiar, oceanic 'Sea Of Side one's little gem Is PAUL SEXTON Losers' to the end of the Tranquility' (with confi- HE'S AROUND 40 years dent, paired 'The Pump , a climactic in- album, the Inevitable guitars that tro, culminating in true ROSSINGTON-COL sound comes through old, his albums look dated suggest another 'Edmund blue guitar as soothing again and again. and you probably think Fitzgerald') and the folky, as LINS BAND: dated. Except shanty -like a drop o1 calomfne on 'Anytime Anyplace To quote from the MCA they sound 'Ghosts Of Peeling, burnt skin. biography: "The latest that you probably haven't Cape Horn'. 'The Auc- Space Boogie' (camp Anywhere' (MCA music from these old bothered to listen , for tioneer' is folky and name, eh?) has sheer 5130) friends is strong, vibrant, years: he's just a singer- uptempo too. 'Make Way energy. Beck tackling powerful containing many songwliter from years For The Lady' Is nagging dodgy rhythm SPRINGING FROM 'the of the elements from ago, quite good for 'If You and 'If You Need Me' is a changes, nucleus Mind', oh. not unaided and abetted of Lynyrd Skynyrd before, but with a fresh, Could Read My ballad with all its senti- and, 'The Wreck Of The ment put to good use and recent n comes a determined new, sophisticated, nitty- Phillipsby son explosive Seven -piece band, called gritty approach" - Edmund Fitzgerald'. none left over. Perhaps It drums, dynamic Rossington-Collins. Deter- granted, but there are too But wait ... it was only all still seems I years ago, on his last to you, but throughout mined they may be, but, many elements ' from Iwo anachronistic the faster that wrong with stepp- tracks, TI Becko' must ask myself, do they have before. and there is not album 'Endless Wire', what's be enough, he produced the outstan- ing back In lime for 35 a mucho macho parody for originality to enough .emphasis on roach the ob- ding ballad 'The Circle Is minutes or so? + + + + has he been caught in a peak they're "new". - I and came PAUL SEXTON time warp?) with Its ham- viously aiming for? cannot end this review Small'. just my, Spanla fretwork, while 'Golden Road' meanders ;r aimlessly on, with fists of flutesy chord manoeuvres - so jazzy and razamattaz. r v° The obvious deficiency comes in the vocals area )'cos there aren't any, a shame, because this would have upheld the weaker, more laborious sections), But the real villain of the piece is 'The Final Peace', Beck's New single - Picture bag - ' 'recently released single. The BIG question is where does entertainment stop andthe consuming fire of ego take over? Streams of wailing, banshee guitar with interspersed. mock; emotive rifling isn't a good idea if you want to keep people in the same room . .. Still, I met a typical fan JAMES WARREN: teetering on the brink. in the market who didn't think it was boring stuff; r h "Fab, man - so laid .r' 'yr back!" he said. "Just like " 5. he used to be In the old days ..." After that, who NOTSO was I to argue? It's got spark - but II won't set your hair alight._ + + + BEV PERRY VOYAGER: 'Act' Of DUMB Love' (Mountain TOPS 127) . THEY MUST have thought it was so easy, Voyager, BUNNIES when they burst on to the charts seemingly tiom nowhere last year with the THE KORGIS: 'Dumb Waiters' (Rialto Tenor 'Hallway Hotel' single. 104) Subsequent failures will have taught them that it THE CORGIS are a real poser. They are a band' who just isn't that way. but still have hit singles in a world where image Is all, and yet the record promised a loi they have no image. At all. None. They have never and much of. that is now been caught playing live, but they are on their third hit fulfilled with their second to be the biggest yet. But no image ... album release. and it promises N sure beats the hell outta me. Down-the -middle British Cast your digital recorder back to August last year pop bands aren't'hat easy and their first effort, 'Young And Russian'. Don't to come by these days. remember, huh? Then October and 'If I Had You' with Pop records, yes, but how all that peering tres wistful and myopic into the many of them are by fly- that one, dontcha? by-night beings who cameras on TOTP. Yeh, remember l.' Now there's 'Everybody's Got To Learn Sometime' drown even faster than and It Is nothing short of a classic smasheroonie. they surface? On a less Which goes to show that you don't have to fit one of transient level, there's the Westwood's dreaded pop boxes to succeed it the pro- Corgis, the Planets, New duct is good enough. James Warren of the National Musk, there's the Health spas and his friend Andy Davis, who has since Sinceros on a slightly d ' left the warren for lettuce patches anew write more diverse plane, and endless wistful, romantic pop songs and this album is that is roughly where full of 'em. There is a never-ending succession of Voyager come In. 'Act Of these ditties which increase in quality on side one un- Love' is a wholly-compe- til 'Everybody' Got To Learn Sometime' at the demise lent collection of songs of side one: with pop roots, but -with 4 Recorded at the Crescent Studios in Bath, where more than an occasional Gabriel was doing his new album at the same time last suggestion of jazz and year, the LP smacks of the contented harmonies what heavier rock. you get down in those parts (hallo to the Beaujolais, Lead singer Paul French Baths greatest restaurant) and is definitely what you has a voice stolen directly might calf accomplished. from Chris Rea, and the Although definitely a case of filing under "Easy connection doesn't quite Listening ', this album is of sound body and mind. My end there, because these only criticism, oh God here we go they think, Is that sound like the sort of Corgi wrists teeter on the brink of limp. They don't ac- songs Rea might record-if tually flop at right angles, but it is a near thing. Still, if he ever had a mind to be a this sort of mellow Moog and kool Korg (the inspiration little more commercial. Free Flimsy Disc for their name?) can cut It - then who cares if the There's nothing likely 4o wrist waggles like a dog's tail, If you'll excuse the ex- sell so well as 'Halfway pression. Hotel', but tunes like 'Sing with first 20,000 High Points here are 'Silent Running' and 'Dumb Out - Love Is Easy' and Waiters, the two most likely to in points In the 'At The Lido' are strident credibility stakes, and 'Evbglsmtm' and 'if It's Alright 'Twist&Shout' with and damn listenable. You Baby' (the neat single) iron the creases in They've a sense of your brain to pertection. Featuring the Anyway, humour, especially on 1 mustn't rabbit on ,any longer. +++vt To SIMON LUDGATE 'Whatever Happened Mo-diFications Cherry': "We were Cool-