Gang of Four - 'Solid Gold' (EMI)

Jon King starts off Solid Gold without even singing, just intoning the poem of 'Paralysed' over a slow, start-stop rock beat that never quite lifts up. If I reviewed the last EP by complaining about how the fun was slowly disappearing from these guys, Solid Gold seems to further that tendency. We get 'Outside the Trains Don't Run on Time' and 'He'd Send in the Army', both from that yellow EP, and a few other memorable tunes, namely the secretly depressing 'Cheeseburger' and the iconic 'What We All Want', a brilliant deconstruction of desire under late capitalism, which slows down the disco fury of Entertainment to a crawl, allowing Gill's searing guitars to be layered in a way which sounds pretty great when turned up loud. No, it's not particularly fun, but there's enough of a hook (the chanted 'Could I be happy with something else?/I need some thing to fill my time', which is great because of the duality of 'something' and 'some thing', which not only questions the whole aspect of commodification but also introduces a sexual element into it) so this ends up being a record I've always kept around and enjoyed perhaps more than I should. A lot of the songs are stuck in the same template - jerky, not as musically satisfying as the hits on their first album, which makes the lyrical slogans stand out more - 'wasting time's a hole in the wallet', 'show me a ditch and i'll dive in it', etc. 'Cheeseburger' is definitely the highpoint, where Gill's harmonics give it a shininess that's ironic juxtaposed with its weary, wage-slave tale lyrics. You'll notice that I often follow the conventional wisdom, which is that after the original rhythm section changed, the band was never quite the same, and while their Marxist posturing was always clearly just posturing (after all this is EMI), it became too obvious to enjoy, as they strived more for pop hits. I don't know if that's actually true at all - I think I only heard Sara Lee-era Gang of Four once or twice - so maybe I should dig into Songs of the Free. We all know that the real radicals were just down the road -- the Mekons -- and yes, I will mention the Mekons approximately 40million more times here before we eventually make it to the Ms (2023?). There's a reason for that, though.

The Blue Öyster Cult - 'Tyranny and Mutation' (Columbia)

Gawlik's awesome artwork has taken on a new alien dimension here, accentuated by two pink moons (though this predates Dhalgren). Architecture is still the focal point of his drawing, but architecture perhaps without purpose, unlike the songs themselves. Things crunch a little harder here and any remaining psychedelia from the Stalk-Forrest hangover is almost totally jettisoned (though I can still hear a bit on 'Teen Archer'). 'The Red and the Black' is a great tune for testing out new stereo equipment, cause the louder you play it the more shaking and stirring you can here. It's crazy that such a fiery bit of boogie-rock is actually about the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and not Stendhal. This is the one the Minutemen covered, and they probably called Eric Bloom "E. Bloom" in 'History Lesson, pt 2' because of the way all monikers are abbreviated here. I would probably call this my favorite BÖC record, though it doesn't have anything resembling a hit or even a radio staple. '7 Screaming Diz-busters' more than makes up for that, on a balancing act between dark vibe rock and proto-metal. 'Baby Ice Dog', penned by Patti Smith, is maybe my least favorite song - I prefer the evil Ren-faire tinges on stuff like 'Mistress of the Salmon Salt (Quicktime Girl)'. Seriously, could anyone come up with better song titles? Well, 'OD'd on Life Itself' and 'Hot Rails to Hell' sound like something from a Saxon record, but they're good stompers as well. I feel like The Blue Öyster Cult (note the addition of the definite article!) took a step away from accessibility here and really made their masterpiece, though it's got such a strange/goofy dichotomy going on that I still don't completely grok it. To go back to the artwork one last time - the back cover reminds me of that crazy acid-burned Nintendo game, 3D Worldrunner; this is a pretty good soundtrack to crash into those columns, though I don't know if any powerups will pop out.

Arti e Mestieri - 'Tilt' (Cramps)

Funny how my entire accumulation of Cramps-label Italian prog pretty much resides on one shelf, in the Ar section specifically. Arti and Mestieri's debut LP looked like a sure thing when I stumbled across it - great Crampsy sleeve design with that pop art-cum-Futurist feel, lots of Italian names I didn't recognize, and the presence of a Mellotron. I was probably expecting something as far out and fucked up as Area's most adventurous records, but instead I got a gentle, pop side of jazz/rock fusion. There's a smoother feel, more focus on strings and horns, and a textural quality that sits well like an after-dinner mint. 'Gravità 9,81' opens the album and sets the pace with its hot saxophone solo over bouncy bass guitar riffs. Yes, this is fusion - perhaps the "dark side of fusion", a term which refers not to the sonorities expressed through the music but rather as a judgement of taste. My own tastes tend to have a weakness for grilled cheese sandwiches, if prepared on a George Foreman, ya follow? This is more of a Jaffle maker approach, though there's a few biting electric guitar solos and chiming, "sunrise" moments that pack a bit of punch. 'In Cammamino' has a breakdown that reminds me of the kind of live band you'd see playing in a New York department store for free, at lunch time, during the Christmas shopping season in the 1950s. It immediately dips back into electric piano jerkoffs and slightly-Seinfeldian bass slaps, creating an unintentionally hilarious effect. I'm not that sold on this record and it's probably been in my vinyl accumulation for so long because of a) the cover art, b) the Cramps label 'cred' and c) these few nice juxtapositions. Not to mention that my accumulation was in storage for a few years, so there ya go. The big 13-minute 'Articolazioni' has that National Health vibe, with cleaner violins (or is it a viola?) but even through it's own busy-ass drumming and slow chordal ascension it feels like 'more of the same'.