The 1981 Listening Post - Human Sexual Response - In a Roman Mood

Human Sexual Response - In a Roman Mood

#417

September 9 1981

Human Sexual Response

In a Roman Mood

Genre: New Wave

4.5 out of 5

Highlights:

Andy Fell

Pound

Blow Up

Land of the Glass Pinecones

Requisite 80s cover:

A terrific and creepy groovy ghoulie version of “A Question of Temperature” by The Balloon Farm. The original is decidedly 60s psychedelia. HSR’s version could be played on the radio today. 

HSR’s follow up to the incredible and indelible Fig. 14 opens with a big 80s alternative sounding “Andy Fell” and maybe that’s why when I had the single back in the day I didn’t gravitate toward it. HSR was looking toward the future, a future where R.E.M. reigned and ushered in a new, Independent sound because “Andy Fell” sounds like it belongs more on Chronic Town than in a Larry Bangor band. But it’s decidedly an HSR song; an uplifting beat and melody about a college suicide. It’s perfect. 

Following it with the art-rock tribal sequel to “Marone Moan”, “Marone Offering” calls to mind Echo & the Bunneymen in it’s haunting and ethereal quality but the Bostonians have more energy than their kinsmen from across the pond. HSR wants you to fall under their spell and lose yourself in the harmonies while they conjure some spirits to whisk us all to the “Land of the Glass Pinecones).

Listening to “Pound” and knowing that this is the era of Kings of the Wild Frontiers I think they were either slightly too late or someone just didn’t want to give them the love they deserve. 

I have this record but I got it from Amoeba just before my turntable crapped out and I never replaced it so, I have actually never heard the entire thing until now. 

I’m struck by how bands like The Mowgli’s and Polyphonic Spree remind me of Human Sexual Response. The giant collective as rock band with heady lyrics and abject joy is something we need in rock. 

This record is simultaneously more mature than their previous but also a bit of a letdown for some reason, but not by much. I don’t know what I was expecting. Like there was an “Unba Unba” on Fig 14, here we get “12345678910”. First we get “What Does Sex Mean to Me” and here we get “Blow Up”, which is a machine gun of song, btw. 

So, I’m not sure what I was expecting outside of the discovery, which I got in spades from the first record. But Roman Mood is a more difficult to pierce record so, I’m sort of glad they ended on this note. 

By the way: Glass Pinecones are beer bottles making contact with guitar strings. Party bands. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnve0tFfhmQ&list=PLlvn8uktX5LvlgDbI5MIjeX8Zu1xRQHQq