|
|
|
Land
|
| Sound
cerebral strategists, the Comsat Angels think
a good tune, but clearly couldn't play one to
save a life. On the evidence of Lynden Barbers
interview, talking about hit records comes easily
enough to the Comsat's. Away from the drawing
board, however, things start to go a little awry:
Land is a sterile record, dull and largely
uneventful.
Trying
to brighten up the dour pomposities that clung
like glum barnacles to the seams of their previous
LPs, the Comsat's have here attempted to sharpen
the edges of their music and eliminate the more
discursive inclinations off Sleep No More
and Fiction.
Former
OMD and China Crisis producer
Mike Howlett has been dragged in to
polish up their usually barren sound and on
the album sleeve, the chaps sport glossy new
threads and a couple of new haircuts. This time
around, they are obviously thinking CHARTS in
a big way.
Unfortunately,
the frantic need to be liked, admired, even
adored, that characterises this frequently forlorn
record thoroughly undermines the groups eager
push into the new pop mainstream. The Comsat's
have never sounded so acutely self - conscious:
their current commercial ambitions rub uncomfortably
against their more familiar morbid obsessions.
|
|
|
|
Land,
then, is an awkward compromise. It boasts none of
the perverse intensity of, say, Sleep No More,
where the Comsats undeviating moroseness was occasionally
quite spell bounding: most of Land is inconsequential,
so much fluff on the needle. Howletts production is
frilly, like aural embroidery: the running stitches
provided by Andy Peakes fluttering keyboards
and the loose twang of Steve Fellows guitar
are pretty enough, but there's no stern thread holding
the weave together.
Howletts
touch is light, often cute, but he can't accommodate
even the briefest flashes of drama blinking through
the glossy murk of skeletal melodies, stagnant riffs
and blundering rhythmic effects that the Comsat's
try to pass off as songs on Land. Mind you,
he's not much helped by Fellows bleak featureless
voice, muted guitar-playing (where's the fierce rage
Fellows brought to Dark Parade, for instance?)
and a sensationally leaden rhythm section that swings
like a eunuch's balls. Their stab at the dancefloor,
A World Away, drags like two club feet in search
of a shoe box.
|
| Elsewhere,
there's a pallid remake of Independence Day,
one of their most celebrated early songs, which
Howlett reduces to a whimpering patter. Mr
Memory is painfully turgid, while on Nature
Trails and As Above So Below, the Comsats
end up sounding like Tears For Fears on
elephant tranquillisers.
Island
Heart is more attractive and might be recommended
as a follow up to the slight, innocuous Will
You Stay Tonight?, otherwise Land
has little to recommend it. On this showing,
the Comsat Angels are superfluous: they serve
no function I can identify. This is weak, ineffectual
moaning. But since you only have to sell about
nine copies of an album to dominate the LP charts
for at least a fortnight, the Comsats can probably
look forward to a decent chart placing. Land
should peak at about 21...
Allan
Jones
|
|
|
|
|
| Back
to the Unravelled page - for more interviews /
press |
|
|
|
