..posebno stvar "Everywhere I go"!.......
Published in Sounds
Date 4/4/81
Entitled "Twilight Romance"
By Dave McCullough
ROCK'N'ROLL'S intuitive creative capabilities, its potential as 'pop art' being everywhere and just needing a spark to set it broadly alight, a notion given sustenance by the current Scotland! The Scene! The Bands! schtick, is further fuelled by the truly prodigious arrival of 'Author! Author!.
How else could a band so apparently finished and broken as The Scars, blighted by a series of badly produced and publicised Pre singles suddenly re-emerge with an album that totally reflects the promise of their early Fast/Last days, but that they come from the land of Orange Juice, Josef K, Aztec Camera, Altered Images and growing others, the 'scene' (sic) of the Last Stand Of Pop Music?
The Scars have been given a second life and they take it with a vengeance. 'Author! Author!' is enough to get Postcard worried! It is a truly luscious album, clearly motivated not only by the Postcardian new-pop-bypassing, but also the underlying influences to the Scars of such removes as JD's 'Atmosphere' and The Fall (big fans)'s 'Shout Your Heart Out.'
'A!A!' is an album teeming with a sense of refound faith in the pop ethic - Scars go to extreme lengths to prove it! There are four tracks on here that end, truly, with grandiose flourishes of Paul Research's guitar, depicting dry ice, kicking up of sand, in short completely over the top dramatisation. But they fit the exaggerated sense of new romanticism perfectly.
New Romanticisn? Scars are in love! And they love being in love! This is genuine and natural, a true neo-Platonism and enough to make Steve Strange give his table-cloth back to his grannie. 'A! A!' is all Alain Fournier's Le Grand Meaulnes, a sense of the twilight world between childhood and adulthood, a sense of dwindling confusion. The other half of the album, incidentally (I go for the romance!) is Le Carre or Raymond Chandler, early Scars, traits of Punk and Iggy, fast and funny.
Funny? Scars can laugh at themselves! They see the funny side of neo-Platonism when you've got a gritty, unfortunate Edinburgh accent. This provides a surreal, almost sci-fi effect, which is all aided by a production that's a big reaction to their Pre singles and is big and roomy enough for everyone to take a bath in it.'A! A!' is over the top in every sense and beautiful for it.
Beauty? It comes in moments, perhaps especially on the last two tracks. First is 'Your Attention Please!'. A nuclear holocaust warning and not too corny with it, followed by a ticking clock, followed by a voice saying in three minutes the world will end (three minutes! a pop sing's life!) followed marvellously by a classic of a love/pop song, 'All About You' - the epic contrast, the drama, so simple and reserved (for once) is nonetheless strikingly effective. I wish more people would make albums like this.
Along with Clock Dva and Eyeless In Gaza, and Album of The Year So Far.
Post je objavljen 13.05.2008. u 19:06 sati.