Review:

on 2011-05-29 CharlesMartel Said:

This is the great debut album from one of the best of the British post punk bands. Right from the opening track, the stunning, "India" through to the end, this album contains some blistering work. While the Furs later turned into much more of an indie pop outfit after they went to the States, it is their earlier work such as this which established their credentials for writing great tunes.

The band emerged onto the scene at a time when British music was still in a state of flux following the demise of punk and, above all, the failure of the punks, like the hippies a decade before them, to change anything. The Furs looked backwards towards the dense wall of sound created by Phil Spector and the pop music of that era, and added their own blend of rock. As a band with a permanent saxophone player, they were something of an anomaly at the time, but in terms of the music they put out, they were spot on.

"India" is a thriller (although was excluded from their compilation because the drummer thought it was a dirge), which builds up from a slow keyboard intro which gives away nothing of what is to come. Then the drums thunder and the song leaps into action with cascading guitar rolls and coruscating sax lines. "Wedding Song" is another great track with an infectious hook line but one of my personal favourites is "Blacks/Radio". The first part a subtle condemnation of South Africa (about as overtly political as the Furs ever got) and the second just dominated by that incredible, sax and guitar sound.

However, the attempt to mimic the wall of sound was one of the reasons why this album did not take off as much as perhaps it should have  and is the main reason why this does not get a higher rating. Though the album was indeed a brilliant platform on which their second album built so spectacularly, if there is one downside to it that is the quality of the production. The best way to describe it is that it lacks subtlety. The music is presented right there, in your face, and while this may have suited the style of the songs in terms of their origin in the small clubs of North London, it does not translate as well onto vinyl.

The other complaint I have, and this is one which the band would come up against time and time again, is the quality of the lyrics. Butler's lyric writing style was to take the music, go away overnight and come back with lyrics in the morning. As the lyrics were not written as an integral part of the sound, the combination was often flawed and frequently limited. By way of example, just count how many times Butler sings the word "stupid" and on how many tracks that word actually occurs. Once you find yourself distracted by trivia such as that, you frequently lose track of the music and begin to concentrate on the peripherals

Neverthelss, the album was a hypnotic mixture of post punk and psychedelia. Anyone who comes to this album from the direction of the band's days as a pop act in the States in the mid- to late-80's is neither going to understand nor like this. Unless you know where post punk came from and what the post punks were doing with their music, this will seem to be without form and without shape. But that, you see, is the point.
Rating: 9/10